As is my usual practice, I end each year with a thread reflecting on my activities on folukeafrica.com and lessons from the past year. Here goes! My activity on the blog was affected by the fact that I was finishing my book. Which I finished. (Yay!) And is now available for pre-order (go for it!)

bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/decolonisation…

Here's my blog round up of 2021, with a few anecdotes thrown in. My blogging frequency has been down this year, because apart from the global pancake, I also decided to write a book. Who does that during a global crisis??? Foluke, apparently. As is my usual practice, I started my year on the blog with a look back at 2020. A year that, in many ways shook the earth, but seems to have left humanity unchanged. As 2021 has shown, we have not been able to prioritize life, all life, over economic gain
folukeafrica.com/whisky-tango-f…

As is my practice every year, I will be threading about what I got up to in 2020 on folukeafrica.com. As I have the attention span of a gnat, it IS going to take me all day to write this thread, but stay tuned for a bumpy ride as we look back at 2020!!! To summarize 2020 on the blog: initial hopeful naivete, decolonisation, COVID panic, FACE, decolonisation, #BlackLivesMatter related despair, hopeful reflection, decolonisation in Africa, #EndSARS, decolonisation, decolonisation, decolonisation.... FADE OUT

Frantz Fanon died on 6 December 1961. Here follows a Fanonian thread of Fanonian quotes and thoughts. My Fanonian film analysis: I ask, how do we simultaneously depict the wretched & those who make wretched? Can we by hearing the unheard, imagine new worlds? 

The Movie 'Detroit': Tales of a Wretched Night folukeafrica.com/detroit-the-mo…

As is my practice at the end of the year, this is a thread of what I have got up to on my blog Foluke's African Skies [folukeafrica.com] in what has been, globally, a year of ups and downs - a year of troubled skies. I started the year with a general exhortation to dream and write and envision new worlds, thus: 'It is 2019. Do you. Write. Blog. Sing. Speak. But do not be silent. We are afraid, but we must not be silent. Speak.'

folukeafrica.com/we-dream-we-wr…

So a thread run down of this year on Foluke's African Skies. Which needs its own twitter account by the way. I run 2 twitter accounts at the moment. One very intermittently. I am not sure I can stretch to 3. But it could happen. This year FAS was all about decolonisation. It was not surprising that the most-read blog was about decolonisation. Republished from @TC_Africa, written by Morreira and Luckett, it was a very practical approach to decolonisation. Giving teachers 10 questions to ask when considering decolonising.
folukeafrica.com/questions-acad…

By 2050 more than half of the world's population will live in Africa. There will still be the recent and less recent African Diasporas, which would also have increased in size. What does this mean for universities as centres of knowledge production and transmission? My thoughts.. This means that if there is a degree offered in a university which does not engage with Africa or African produced knowledge, then by 2050 the knowledge produced by and transmitted in that degree programme will probably only be relevant to less than half of the world.

@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz Research-wise, I would say the evidence is inconclusive. First we need to start from the idea that different groups within Africa would have had different approaches to skin colour/colourism. Therefore the absence of colourism in one African culture is not evidence @nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz of the absence of colourism in ALL African cultures. There is evidence in some cultures that lighter skin was associated with wealth i.e. not having to work in the sun. Wealth = Attractiveness and thus a form of colourism. Take this African colourism and marry it with European...

I am constantly looking for films set in colonial times. For some reason they are very rare. But I found one yesterday on Netflix. 'Palm Trees in the Snow' It was a lovely romantic drama set in Equatorial Guinea [not Guinea Conakry, and not Guinea Bissau]
imdb.com/title/tt320220… It's a Spanish film of a book. Very moving story. Good acting and exceptionally beautiful visually. [I would watch it for the visuals only]. Also good music. So generally, I would recommend it. Please watch it if you have Netflix or other access to it. Want to know thoughts. But-

I am going to attempt to live tweet from the Law's Empire, Empires's Law stream @SLSA2018 #slsa2018 paper on researching #R2P asking the right questions responding to the wrong ones. #slsa2018

Most freedom movements are unfinished projects. The declarative moment of ending an oppression is not the same as actually ending it. Beneath the euphoria and jubilation at the declaration, out of sight, the oppression takes new form and returns.