Rethinking the EUropean project through Pan-Africanist narratives
(2025) European Union International Affairs Conference(EUIA25) — Location: Brussels (21.May.2025)
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- Abstract
- This conference paper examines Pan-Africanist conceptualizations of the "EUropean project" by engaging with the writings of key Pan-Africanist thinkers —namely Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, and Walter Rodney — as well as the contemporary narratives of the Pan-African League Umoja (LP-U). Through a qualitative content analysis, it investigates how Pan-Africanist perspectives decentre and provincialize dominant historiographies of European integration. The findings demonstrate that, rather than serving as a model for regional integration or global governance, European integration is predominantly framed as a continuation of colonial and neo-colonial structures, perpetuating economic dependence and political fragmentation in Africa. Pan-Africanist narratives characterize Europe as a declining civilization, morally compromised by its colonial legacy and subordinate to US hegemony. Moreover, they advocate African unity as a necessary condition for genuine sovereignty, positioning Europe — and by extension the European Union — as an obstacle rather than an ally in Africa’s pursuit of self-determination. EUrope is at the same time an undesired cause for the birth of Pan-Africanism and an undesired continuous presence. By foregrounding these alternative readings, the article underscores the need for critical engagement with perspectives from the Global South in an increasingly multipolar international order.
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Brogna, V., Jan Orbie, & et al. (2025). Rethinking the EUropean project through Pan-Africanist narratives. European Union International Affairs Conference(EUIA25), Brussels. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/275172