“The self is embodied”: Reading queer and trans Africanfuturism in The Wormwood Trilogy

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the politics of embodiment in The Wormwood Trilogy in relation to queerness, transness, and decoloniality, and how the struggles for embodied self-determination are metaphorically connected to the struggles for African liberation in Africanfuturism. I argue that The Wormwood Trilogy affirms African queer and trans relations to embodiment by not only proclaiming the embodiment of the self, but also recognizing the importance of transformation and (re)creation to embodied personhood. I conclude with the ways using Africanfuturism as theory can decolonize queer and trans intercultural futures.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodiment
• africanfuturism
• queer Africa
• critical intercultural communication
• coloniality

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Shinsuke Eguchi, and Godfried Asante for their comments and assistance with the manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jenna N. Hanchey

Jenna N. Hanchey is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research examines aid and development in Africa through intersectional and decolonial thought.