Abstract:
What are the conditions of possibility for epistemic and cultural decolonisation? This paper addresses this question through the work of Frantz Fanon with a view to illuminating the relevance of a complex understanding of translation to broad processes of decolonisation in Africa. The central premise is that without an analysis of Africa’s post-colonial present in relation to psychic life – as referring to the psycho-affective, somatic and spiritual dimensions of human existence – the deeper roots of ongoing attachments to colonial archives and their afterlife, as well as key cultural and spiritual resources for addressing trauma and re-imagining the future, risk remaining unaddressed. Proceeding through a critical-theoretical analysis of, especially, Fanon’s psychiatric writings (2015), the paper suggests that his work opens up the space for thinking of translation (“transmutation”) as an analytical and transformative praxis through which to reclaim the epistemic and political value of African cultural sources and experiences. On the one hand, Fanon illuminates the epistemological significance of attending to psychic life for mobilizing a critical function of translation beyond models of colonial assimilation. On the other hand, he points to the healing (literally to ‘make whole’, or ‘restore wholeness’) possibilities that translation offers when viewed as a creative process that, drawing from lived experience and familial cultural referents, can contribute to the reconstitution of personality and the restoration of agency in the production of social and cultural life.

Andrea Cassatella is Senior Research Fellow, Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University