Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur
Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur sheds light on individual and collective actions across Europe, Africa and the Americas to defend racial equality and justice. Our guests - scholars, activists, artists - share their practice with us, highlighting both the forms that historical and contemporary racial violence takes in these different contexts, and examples of possible reforms and mobilizations. Through their experiences fighting against racism, we draw the contours of racial justice efforts today. Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur is hosted by Liliane Umubyeyi and Amah Edoh, co-founders and co-directors of the African Futures Lab (AfaLab). A new episode is published every two weeks, and episodes alternate between French and English. Production credits: Production: Amah Edoh; Liliane Umubyeyi; Matt Dann; Recording and editing: Matt Dann; Music: “African Dreams,” written and composed by Seun Anikulapo Kuti; Artwork: Amélie Umuhererezi
Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur
Season IV Episode 1: Colonial shadows (EN)
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Colonial narratives about Black women did not disappear with colonial rule; they continue to shape how Black women are perceived, treated, and represented today.
In this debut episode of Disrupting the Colonial Script: Centering Black Women’s Voices—the podcast series of our broader "Unfinished Freedom" project—we trace these very continuities to highlight the struggle for structural accountability.
Produced in partnership with Liberation Alliance Africa, this opening conversation brings together co-hosts Oluwatobiloba Ayodele and Lavender Namdiero with guests Omolara Oriye, a cultural worker, thinker, decolonial feminist organiser, lawyer, and co-dreamer of Liberation Alliance Africa, and Reem Abbas, a feminist writer, researcher, and organiser with the alliance.
Together, they unpack the colonial origins of enduring stereotypes about Black women, exposing how these historical logics continue to dictate healthcare, media, public policy, and everyday life. Drawing on decolonial feminist thought, lived experience, and indigenous knowledge, the conversation moves beyond exposing harm to centre Black women's agency, political imagination, and collective resistance. Colonial Shadows invites listeners to question the stories we have inherited, challenge the systems that sustain them, and imagine futures where Black women define themselves on their own terms
What You Will Learn:
- How colonial stereotypes about Black women were historically produced and why they persist in contemporary society.
- How to develop a critical consciousness regarding the ways these narratives function in modern digital and physical spaces.
- The importance of recognizing indigenous knowledge and lived experience as authoritative sources of insight.
- The power of Black women's agency in resisting, reworking, and dismantling colonial ways of knowing.
- How to reflect on our own responsibilities in either sustaining or challenging these harmful representations.
Our Hosts
Oluwatobiloba Ayodele
Lavender Namdiero
Our Guests
Omolara Oriye
Reem Abbas
Our Partner
Liberation Alliance Africa
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Credits
Production: African Futures Lab and the Liberation Alliance Africa, Matt Dann.
Recording and editing: Matt Dann.
Music: "African Dreams," written and composed by Seun Anikulapo Kuti.
Artwork: Florence Akyams.
This episode was made possible through the generous support of our individual donors:
Nabeelah Shabbir, Carmen Ervin, A. Lorenceau, Taoufik, Anita Munyaneza, Amy Ngoc Dung Hong, Britta Redwood, Michel DeGraff, Deborah Ashimwe, Soline Laplanche-Servigne, Claire Bernard, Yasmine Abdillahi, Simon and Anita Hanukai Kirpalani, Maite Van Regemorter, Asdis Olafsdottir, S.F. du Toit, and Julie Frey.
We are deeply grateful for their generosity and for supporting efforts to amplify Black women's voices and advance decolonial feminist storytelling.
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