[Re]Claiming Space in Turbulent Post Colonial Africa

Abstract

This panel interrogates how African actors reclaim physical, political, and epistemic spaces to reframe challenges of colonialism and contemporary crises. Space is conceptualized as both embodied and physical, tangible and intangible—a living realm where politics and social processes unfold in the making of the post-colonial state. From community-based peacebuilding and women’s resistance to traditional leadership and the care enterprise, this panel interrogates how African actors reclaim and reconfigure these spaces to challenge entrenched structures of violence, exclusion, and inequality. Through interdisciplinary approaches, the papers explore strategies for healing generational trauma, rewriting gendered histories through artivism, and reframing care policies through transformative social policy lenses. Together, these contributions illuminate the dynamic processes through which communities, activists, and policymakers assert agency and imagine inclusive futures amid turbulence in post-colonial Africa.

Title	Details
Healing Generational Trauma: Community-Based Pathways to Peace in Post-Conflict Zimbabwe	View Paper Details
Artivism and the Gendered Politics of Memory: (Re)Writing and (Re)Righting Zimbabwe’s Political Project	View Paper Details
How Ideas Frame the Politics and Policymaking Process of Care in Kenya: Examining through a Transformative Social Policy Lens	View Paper Details
“We Have Been Excluded for So Long”: Female Traditional Leaders and the Politics of Inclusion in Ghana.	View Paper Details