After the end of colonialism in Africa, there have been concerted efforts to decolonise Africa by mopping out the vestiges of exploitation, divide-and-rule system, oppression, and dehumanization, among others that characterised the period. Following its succession of an era that witnessed the mass migration of African descent from Africa to the Americas, colonialism was nothing short of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade save for the natural resources exploitation that differentiated it. With post-colonialism being around for almost as long as colonialism, it is yet to demonstrate any significant development in the different sectors of their societies despite gaining independence peacefully through negotiations. From economic to political, religious, social, and cultural among others, African countries have been challenged by political conflicts, conflicts over natural resources, economic instability, etc., and this invites us to ask among other critical questions ‘What is contemporary about contemporary Africa; is colonialism an episode or an epoch? Perhaps, Africa’s sense of decolonisation has been overrun by neo-colonisation. Against this backdrop, this study engages textual analysis of secondary materials including archival materials, journal articles, books, media reportage, etc. to unpack decolonisation while reflecting on the post-colonial struggle of Africa that has continued to undermine its attainment of development indices that matches with global standards. She may have shown potential and recorded small wins in the areas of music, and sports, for example, they have still not recorded impressive miles enough to partake in the global conversation. The study affirms that the campaign for decolonisation for a true African identity and development must dismantle the complexities evident in the enduring colonial mentality, and concludes that there can only be ‘working’ contemporary Africa, one that contrasts with the characteristics of colonialism if continuous but deliberate, strategic, and achievable policies that are patterned to suit peculiarities are harnessed for its advancement.

In a historic decision, sentence of the Constitutional Court of Colombia (2016) declared the Atrato River as a subject of rights. The Atrato is the first river in Colombia to be declared as such. This new kind of legal figure was the product of a long process led by the ethnic-territorial communities throughout the Atrato basin with an organization called dignified land (Tierra Digna) as well as a form of life and action named Vivir sabroso. In this presentation, I explore how Vivir sabroso helps to think and act to dismantle the necropolitical spaces of closure and exclusion that operate in this Colombian region. This concept works as a counter-discourse for the systemic violence that has been articulated through the exclusionary walls of race, social class, and gender but also developmentalism. In dialogue with N. Quiceno Toro, A. Mbembe, and A. Escobar, I explore how Vivir sabroso not only neutralizes the complexities of violence and trauma in the region but also provides discursive agency to marginalized groups and a frame for actions focused in the protection of life. For this purpose, I analyze how these afrocolombian, indigenous, and mestizo communities employ their worldview in their daily struggles, opposing solidarity in action and the affirmation of cultural rights to neoliberal developmental discourses and violences.

The abstract uploaded considers the implementation model of affirmative action in Brazil. This abstract has been used to develop a working paper, however arguments raised in this paper have additionally been delivered by way of a presentation. This working paper considers how adequate the current model of affirmative action in Brazil is in order to create substantive equality for Afro-Brazilians. The paper starts by considering the watershed allegations raised against Brazil in the 2001 UN Durban Conference, in which the claims of Brazil being a "racial democracy" were roundly debunked. Following the UN Conference, Brazil for the past two decades has attempted to develop a sufficient reparations model by way of affirmative action in order to ensure that its Afro Brazilian populous had adequate education, housing and job opportunities. Nevertheless, as this working paper argues, this current model of affirmative action may pose rights violations for Afro-Brazilians with intersectional identities. Thus, this paper argues for a broad intersectional framework for affirmative action in Brazil. This research can be engaged with by way of a workshop or roundtable segment.

This workshop explores the more discreet and unconventional tactics and strategies that Black women in the U.S. and Senegal use to secure protracted reproductive freedom. This theme is anchored in two chapters from second book manuscript on the political economy of race and family planning in the U.S.and Senegal. The workshop encourages participants to unsettle countries in the global North as 'developed' and thus incomparable to places in the global South read as 'developing'. Disrupting this binary that sustains colonial forms of knowledge production expose new ways of understanding power and resistance. I illustrate this point by showing similarities between population policies in Senegal and those in the U.S., where both states have long history of framing Black women's reproductive capacities as the source of social and economic instability. Their personal decisions to consume or not consume family planning technologies becomes a matter of national and international development. The prescribed and proscribed range of reproductive actions for Black women in Senegal and the U.S. dictates how we read choices to have multiple children, not use family planning, receive welfare, etc. In Senegal, I demonstrate how the circulation of anti-family planning myths, which are conventionally read as backwards and anathema to population policies and women's health, are forms of resistance that give Senegalese women an alternate source of family planning information to draw on that is rooted in a deeper and wider sense of community. In the U.S., I show how Black women receiving welfare payments from the state, which has historically been disparaged and racialized as irresponsible reproduction, grants these women and communities access to resources that would otherwise not be redistributed. Both instances have implications for decolonial theorizing. Reading Black women's unconventional acts of reproductive resistance through a decolonial lens pushes past the notion that indigenous practices are the only source of alternatives to coloniality.