Foresight

It’s 2040. The past two decades have seen shifts across the world in the influence and fortunes of individuals and societies alike, underscored by changing climates and technological advancements. Some of the changes have worsened prospects for Black people while others hint at the end of anti-Black racism. This is the world in which our Black Futures issue is set.

Amid this changing global landscape, it almost feels, to feature contributors Alex Fitzgerald and Alistair Scott, that the arch of the moral universe is bending towards justice. Almost. Because new opportunities for global Black solidarity have, in these contributors' imaginings of the future, revealed questions and tensions that are familiar to the realities of 2021. Also in this issue, visual artists Nathaniel Sheppard III, Alexis Tsegba, and Ré Phillips—together with cultural worker Adama Sanneh and clinical psychologist Roseline Armange, the first guests from season two of our Race Beyond Borders podcast—help us explore Planetary Blackness, Moya's vantage point into the world. It’s 2040. The past two decades have seen shifts across the world in the influence and fortunes of individuals and societies alike, underscored by changing climates and technological advancements. Some of the changes have worsened prospects for Black people while others hint at the end of anti-Black racism. Read More...

Editorial

Towards Planetary Blackness

Sebabatso C. Manoeli

Moya is rooted in the belief that we cannot inhabit realities we have not first encountered in our minds. Imagination is central to liberation.

Building on WEB Du Bois’s observation that, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line,” Moya deliberately employs a multigenerational lens in the bid to change the course of the coming century. We invite readers to revisit the past, the present, and the future to engage in creative approaches to (dis)solving the problem of the colour line.

As the word for ‘spirit,’ ‘soul,’ and ‘air,’ Moya calls us into the boundless possibilities that will surely pave the way to our liberation. Read more.

Features

Debt that Remains

Alex Fitzgerald

African countries are thriving in 2040 after unilaterally withholding repayments, nearly two decades earlier, of debt that limited their abilities to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.

Homegoing in the 21st Century

Alistair Scott

Hostilities have been rising against waves of Black Americans who've resettled on the continent, raising familiar questions about racial solidarity in a system of global capitalism. Read more.

Art

Back to Africa II (2019)

Nathaniel Sheppard III

Collage and print serve as mediums to contemplate the transatlantic slave trade and the migration of Black people in contemporary times. See more here.

Worlds Within (2021)

Alexis Tsegba

Illustrations, photographs and cut-outs fuse in a search for multiplicity and connectedness in people's interior worlds. See more here.

Black Gold (2020)

Ré Phillips

African ceramic masks pose questions on the afterlives of Dutch material culture on the African continent. See more here.

Podcast

Crafting a Black Italian Identity

Adama Sanneh

Season 2 of Race Beyond Borders begins with a moving conversation with Adama Sanneh, co-founder and CEO of the Moleskine Foundation. Sanneh walks us through his coming of age as a young Black man in an Italy plagued by cultural silences about blackness. Despite these difficulties, Sanneh embraces possibilities for the emergence of an expansive Black identity in Italy, one fashioned by those who embody it. Listen to the episode here.

Decoloniality in Martinique

Roseline Armange

In episode 2, we travel to Martinique, an overseas department of France and more importantly, the birthplace of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon. Clinical psychologist and researcher Roseline Armange guides us into an exploration of the rich past and present of her people. In the conversation, she explains how Martinicans negotiate a complex relationship with mainland France while embracing a distinctive identity. Listen to the episode here.