The misadventures of “Abolition” (Tommy Curry/Norman Ajari) – Concepts of Decolonial Politics #1

The Fundamental Concepts of Decolonial Politics : “Abolition”. This series of conversations proposed by the Frantz Fanon Foundation aims at exploring, understanding, and challenging intellectual tools used throughout the history of anticolonial, decolonial, and Black radical movements. A contribution to the decolonization and renewal of our modes of thinking.

Abstract: Abolition is arguably one of the oldest core concepts of Black radical political thought. In the late 18th Century, emancipated slaves Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano’s books laid the ground for future Black intellectual interventions calling the white supremacist status quo into question. Along with white liberal philanthropic abolitionism always coexisted a Black plea for liberation and social upheaval.
More recently, the movement for Black lives as well as Black radical intellectuals renewed the concept of Abolition, connecting it to the problems of racist policing and the prison-industrial-complex. It opens new avenues for thinking Black revolution and self-determination, but also reactionary and negrophobic rewritings epitomized by the call to “abolish Black men”. How does this new conjuncture relate to the history of Black politics? What is the meaning of abolition in the context of decolonial thought? Mireille Fanon Mendès-France, Tommy J. Curry, and Norman Ajari gathered to raise these pressing questions.

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