Geography of Emotions Across the Black Mediterranean: Oral Memories and Dissonant Heritages of Slavery and the Colonial Past

Abstract

This contribution is dedicated to analysing oral memories about the Black Mediterranean through interviews with people from or culturally linked to the Horn of Africa. The aim is to consider how the interviewees make use of archives to voice their feelings about the past and present in Africa and Europe. I introduce the concept of a “geography of emotions” as a set of different perceptions of Europe and its past. The mobilization of these memories in new interpretative perspectives is part of a dissonant heritage which is actively working inside the European borders in order to produce new cultural identities, to reiterate forms of belonging to black diasporic communities, and to invent new geographies from liminal positions.