Poetics of Relational and Intersectional Identities: African-Diasporic Writers in Austria

Project Informationen

Project sponsor: FWF - Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Project nummer:PAT5166024 (single project)
Project funds: 377.079 €
Project manager: Rémi Armand Tchokothe
Project collaborator: Laura Kisser
National Project partner: Chiala - Verein zur Förderung von Kultur.Diversität.Entwicklung
International Project consultant: Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo 

Project duration: 01.09.2025 – 31.08.2029

Keywords: Comparative African Diaspora Poetics, Relational/Intersectional Identities, (Im)mobilities Studies, ‘Black’ Austrians, Artivism, Literature and Discrimination

About the project

(c) Antonia Beck-Mannagetta

Austria remains a neglected geographical space in the fields of African-diasporic literatures and African-European relations despite the increasing number of African-diasporic writers in Austria. Their works merge individual and collective experiences to address the complexities of being, seeing, (un)belonging, art and identity, that speak to current geopolitical Euro-African environments. The project will apply the following theoretical approaches:

1. The Poetics of Relational and Intersectional Identities (Glissant, Crenshaw, Salisu)
2. “Over there is in the here” (Chamoiseau)
3. “Poets of War” (Mazrui).  

Our hypothesis is that the selected writers meet at the intersection of political literature, migration studies, intercultural communication, critical diversity, gender and antidiscrimination, and social artivism. With the leading question “Writing and performing from their marginalised and intersectional positions in Austria, what kinds of relational and intersectional poetics do the writers develop and how do these enrich the dominantly ‘white’ Austrian literary landscape and ‘Black Europe’?”, the project will thus:

Goals

  • Cover a new ground in African Diaspora Studies, Migration Studies, African European Studies, Black Studies and Studies of Black Europe.
  • Provide a much-needed aesthetic and socio-political analysis of the cartography of the African diasporic literary presence in Austria.
  • Analyze African-European relations and complex, intersectional identities.
  • Develop a new multimodal, context-sensitive and multilingual research method.
  • Present a theoretical basis for understanding African-diasporic literatures in the wider context of “African-European” relations.

The Literary Corpus in Numbers

 

  • 10+ authors (Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin, Ada Diagne, Chibo Onyeji, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Ishraga Mustafa Hamid, Mihret Kebede, Njideka Iroh, Obiora Charles Ikelie Ofoedu, Precious Chiebonam Nnebedum, Tarek Eltayeb)
  • 50+ independent works and 60+ other works (non-independent publications, online publications, videos, exhibition text) in 7 languages (Amharic, Arabic, German, English, French, Igbo, Nigerian Pidgin-English)
  • 10+ genres (spanning from novels, children’s literature, short stories, poetry collections, performances, poetry slams, plays, and (semi)autobiographies to libretti)
  • Translations into 8+ languages (Arabic, Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, …)

 

 

 

Team

(c) Tchokothe

Principal Investigator

Assoz.-Prof Dr. habil. Rémi Armand Tchokothe is professor of comparative literature with a focus on African Literatures (Department of African Studies and Department of Comparative Literature) at the University of Vienna. He has completed field research in 8 countries across Africa and Europe, and his research and teaching interests include Swahili and Wolof Literatures; Indian Ocean Literatures and Political Geography; Literature and Memory(cide), and Critical African(a) Studies.

(c) Kisser

Project Researcher

Laura Kisser, B.A. B.A. M.A. holds a B.A. and M.A. in Comparative Literature with an additional degree in Journalism and Communication Studies from the University of Vienna. During her studies, she shifted her focus to explore voices absent in the curricula of most common Departments of Comparative Literature. She has work experience in the Austrian cultural sector and knows the national cultural scene well.