Call for Poems | Edward Nkoloso, Afronauts, and the Decolonial Space Race

The story of the Zambian Space Programme, launched by science teacher Edward Nkoloso shortly after Zambian independence in 1964, represents a potent historical rupture. 

It launched a profound, revolutionary act of post-colonial imagination and technological defiance that transcends its status as a mere Cold War footnote. 

In a global context dominated by the American and Soviet technological duopoly, Nkoloso, a former freedom fighter, executed a masterstroke of political performance. His mission - featuring 17-year-old Matha Mwamba, twelve Afronauts, two cats, and a missionary - sought to beat the world powers to Mars using a homemade rocket (the D-Kalu) and unconventional, grassroots training methods. 

Nkoloso asserted that the colonial powers were too consumed by war and exploitation to truly deserve the heavens. His demand for space access was not as a supplicant, but as an independent, non-aligned nation, asserting a sovereign right to the cosmos. 

The project was simultaneously a sophisticated satire of the Global North’s technological hubris and a deadly serious statement about African technological autonomy. 

The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series invite poets to engage with the full philosophical, emotional, political, and speculative dimensions of the Afronauts' mission and its enduring legacy, examining how this defiant dream continues to inform African and Diasporic futures. 

We seek work that uses the lyric, narrative, and experimental tools of poetry to capture the tension between scrap metal and celestial ambition. 

Submission Guidelines 

• Poems should be 40 lines or less, and short prose, 100 words or less. 
• Submissions must be in English. In the case of translated work, it is the translator’s responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holder of the original work. 
• If submitting a poem or short prose that has been previously published, please give details of where it has appeared and confirm that you are the copyright holder. 
• Submissions should be typed single spaced and submitted either in the body of an email or as a .doc attachment. 
• Please include a short biography of 50 words or less. This will be included in the anthology if your poem is accepted. 
• You may submit a maximum of three poems or three pieces of short prose or a combination of poems and short fiction. You do not have to submit all three at the same time. 
• We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world. 
• Please send the poems and short fiction to: <forcedmigrationandthearts@gmail.com>  
• Deadline: 12 noon, Monday, 25 May 2026, Africa Day. 

Thematic Prompts for Poetic Exploration 

We encourage poets to use the following five thematic clusters, which explore the programme's deep context, political dimensions, and lasting significance, as springboards for new work. 

 

I. The Zambian Dream: Materiality, Character, and Training 

This cluster focuses on the immediate, tangible reality of the programme - the people, the materials, the practice, and the dreams they embodied against staggering odds. 

 

The Unconventional Crew: Center your work on Matha Mwamba, the only female Afronaut, or the lesser-known trainees. What was the psychological cost of holding such a radical, utopian hope in a newly independent nation? Explore the internal conflicts, hopes, and doubts amidst the makeshift training and international scrutiny. We seek poems that provide inner lives for these historical figures. 

 

The Menagerie of Mission: Analyze the potent symbolism of the two cats and the inclusion of the missionary in the training regimen. How does this juxtaposition of scientific ambition, the animal world, and colonial religious authority create conflict, friction, or new, syncretic meanings? Consider the missionary's unique perspective - was it of skepticism, spiritual endorsement, or silent political resistance against the new government? 

 

Artifacts of Aspiration: Focus intensely on the tangible objects: the oil drum and rope swing (the training simulator), the D-Kalu rocket made of scrap metal, and the improvised spacesuits. The transformation of scrap metal into a space vehicle is a philosophical statement. Explore the labor, ingenuity, and cultural meaning embedded in these artifacts. 

 The Methodology of Decolonization: Explore the training itself. How did using localized, available materials and non-elite methods articulate a rejection of Western technological dominance? Consider the political theatre of demonstrating technological competence using limited, local resources. 

 

Failure as Futurity: Create a work that argues the project’s inability to launch was, in fact, its most powerful success. How does a defiant failure open up more possibilities than a compromised technical achievement would have? 

 

II. The Global Gaze: Satire, Politics, and Celestial Claims 

This cluster deals with the geopolitical reality, the international reaction, and the ethical claims Nkoloso made on the future of space. 

 

Heavenly Competition: Examine the philosophical and religious dimensions of Nkoloso's claim on Mars and the Moon. What did it mean to assert sovereignty over celestial bodies for a newly independent African nation, symbolically reversing the historical logic of terrestrial colonialism and imperialistic discovery? 

 

The Global Laughter and Local Pride: Explore the vicious cycle of the international media's reception (often mocking or patronizing) and how that contrasted with the program’s powerful domestic effect on Zambian national pride and internal political debate. When does satire function as a weapon of the powerful, and when does it become a tool of ingenious resistance for the marginalized? 

 

Ethics of the Unconquered: Detail the ethical framework Nkoloso proposed for the Afronauts—a mission explicitly intended to avoid violence and spread goodwill. How does this ethos critique the history of resource exploitation and territorial claims on Earth, and what are the implications for international space law? 

 

Political Independence as Launchpad: How did the specific moment of political independence in 1964 provide the necessary ideological fuel for such a bold, utopian technological assertion, and how did it affect Zambia's non-aligned status? 

 

Subverting Technological Whiteness: Produce a piece that explores how Nkoloso's project subverted the notion of technological whiteness, the idea that advanced technology is the sole province of the Global North—by performing competence with unconventional means. 

 

III. Future Vectors: Diaspora, History, and Technological Sovereignty 

This cluster connects the Afronauts’ micro-history to broader Pan-Africanism, global military history, and the future of African scientific contributions. 

 

The Pan-African Future: Connect Nkoloso's cosmic aspirations to the larger Pan-African movements of the 1960s. How did the demand for technological inclusion and sovereignty resonate and facilitate knowledge exchange across the continent and throughout the African diaspora? 

 

The Shadow of War: Reflect on the legacy of WW2 and the V-2 rocket program. How did the history of global conflict and subsequent Cold War technologies influence post-colonial nations, and how did Nkoloso’s grassroots approach serve as a critique or alternative to that military-industrial lineage? 

 

Contemporary Contributions: Explore the stories of Africans and the African diaspora who went on to contribute to global space programmes and research. Center figures like the mathematical pioneers known as the "Hidden Figures" of NASA (e.g., Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson), astronauts such as Dr. Mae C. Jemison (first African American woman in space) and Leland Melvin, or leaders in contemporary African space agencies (e.g., SANSA or NASRDA). How do their achievements intersect with, diverge from, or fulfill Nkoloso’s original, defiant vision? 

 

Challenging the Narrative: Create a work that challenges the conventional narrative of the Space Race by centering an African voice or perspective, reframing the accepted timeline of cosmic ambition. Digital Diasporic Spaces: How does Nkoloso’s story live on in digital diasporic spaces (social media, memes, digital art)? Explore the transformation of this historical moment into a contemporary, transnational source of cultural power. 

 

IV. Legacies: Planetary Justice, Extraction, and Environmental Cost 

This cluster delves into the lasting legacies, the ethical cost of space technology, and the theme of freedom of movement in the age of global borders. 

 

Global Extraction and Space Technologies: Create work that explores the essential, often hidden, connection between space hardware and the African resources (coltan, lithium, rare earth elements) needed to build them. Focus on the human and environmental cost of cosmic ambition on the continent, particularly on the affected people near mining activities. Consider specific resource-rich nations like The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for cobalt/coltan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Detail the resulting ecological damage. 

 

Celestial Waste and Debris: Explore the ethical crisis of space debris and celestial waste that disproportionately falls over the African continent. Launch trajectories allow debris to impact regions across the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and nations near the equator (including parts of West, Central, and East Africa). How does this technological waste reflect a continuation of colonial power dynamics? Investigate the legal difficulty for affected nations to claim compensation. 

 

The Cosmic Escape: Contrast the utopian promise of space travel with the terrestrial reality of restricted freedom of movement for Africans (migration, visas, border regimes, and refugee crises). Focus on specific sites of restriction, such as the dangerous Mediterranean crossing, detention centers in North Africa (e.g., Libya), or the internal border controls in regions like the Sahel and along South Africa's borders. Critically examine how European financial support actively bankrolls the security measures and externalized border control initiatives that restrict African mobility, and explore the highly varied ways the Global North is responding to the resulting crises (e.g., humanitarian critique versus securitization policies). Is space the ultimate, unfettered escape, or does it simply replicate and expand terrestrial injustices? We specifically welcome poems that interrogate the contrast between cosmic and terrestrial mobility. 

 

The Power of (Im)mobility: Use the theme of (im)mobility to create a contrast between those who have the freedom to move (or launch into space) and those whose movement is restricted by post-colonial borders. 

 

Planetary Justice: Produce a work that directly links the terrestrial issues of resource extraction, the dumping of space debris, and the restriction of human migration into a comprehensive demand for Planetary Justice. 

 

V. The Enduring Afterlife: Temporality, Mythology, and Futures 

This final cluster focuses on the power of Nkoloso's story to transcend historical fact and enter the realm of mythology, Afrofuturism, and enduring cultural resonance. 

 

The Projection of 2074: Nkoloso launched the Zambian Space Programme in October 1964. Travel 110 years into the future to the year 2074. Write a story, play, or visual concept set in that year. What has Africa achieved by then? How does this temporal leap function as a way to displace present anxiety with long-term vision, connecting Nkoloso’s dream to established Afrofuturist literary precedents (e.g., Sun Ra, Octavia Butler)? 

 

Media Afterlife, Archives, and Source Material (Including Oral History): We invite critical and creative explorations of the primary and secondary sources that define the Afronauts’ story, especially focusing on oral history interviews and personal testimonies. Analyze how this history has been constructed across various media and popular culture sites, including: literary works (e.g., the novel The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, the play The Afronauts by Tonderai Munyevu, existing poetry, and academic monographs), newsreel footage, original newspaper reports (like Nkoloso's "Open Letter to UNESCO"), contemporary songs, music videos (e.g., Muzi, Janelle Monáe), films (e.g., Afronauts by Nuotama Bodam), speculative art installations (e.g., Cristina de Middel), and academic work. How does engaging directly with primary sources, such as Matha Mwamba's testimony, records from the National Archives of Zambia, or contemporary oral accounts from community members, challenge or confirm the project’s popular mythos and reveal the lived experience of the time? Create new work that excavates and reclaims the narrative from these source materials. 

 

The Legacy of the Laugh: Analyse the success of the project not as a scientific achievement, but as a cultural one. If the world laughed, what did that laughter reveal about the world, and how did Nkoloso use that laughter as a shield or a weapon? Explore the notion of failure as resistance. 

 

Celestial Narratives: Explore how African and African diasporic myths, legends, folklore, cosmologies, and beliefs about space and space travel provide an enduring foundation for understanding the cosmos. We specifically invite work engaging with traditions like Dogon cosmology and the Sirius star system, Yoruba Orisha narratives related to creation, and other beliefs that feature celestial beings or cosmic journeys. How do these narratives interact with Nkoloso’s secular-yet-spiritual mission? The 

Non-Linear Event: Create a work that treats the Zambian Space Programme not as a historical event that failed, but as a non-linear, ongoing cosmic event that is still happening outside of conventional, Western chronology.

About The Poetry Anthology Series 

The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is a multi-volume poetry project exploring themes of African and African diasporic migration. Inspired by the Africa Migration Report: 2nd Edition (African Union and International Organisation for Migration, 2024). 

The poetry anthology series is organized by Forced Migration and The Arts, CivicLeicester, and Regularise. Books we have been published as part of the series include the collection, Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (2024), and From Here To There: 101 Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, Forthcoming). 

See also, our concept note, videos from readings and conversations around the series, and our appeal for funding.

Image credit: "Afronauts", by Korrine Sky

Refugees are as British as Fish and Chips - A Call for Poems

The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series invites poems and short prose focusing on the escalating tragedy of refugee deaths in the English Channel (La Manche).

We are looking for original works that can serve as essential witness, critiquing the systemic factors—political, economic, and historical—that lead to how human beings fleeing persecution are perishing in the cold waters of the Strait of Dover.

We are looking for poems that remember the dead and which confront the policies, ideologies and beliefs that make these deaths permissible and the people unmournable.

I. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Poems: 40 lines or less; Short Fiction/Prose: 100 words or less.
Submission Limit: A maximum of three pieces in total.
Format: Submissions must be included in the body of an email or as a single .doc attachment; Include a short biography (50 words or less).
Send to: forcedmigrationandthearts@gmail.com
Deadline: Friday, 31 October 2025.

II. THE ENGLISH CHANNEL: A LOCATION OF IMMENSE LOSS

The English Channel is increasingly a deadly route for refugees, reflecting political failure and human tragedy.

As of late September 2025, between 17 and 23 people, including women and children, have died attempting the crossing. The previous year, 69 people died in the Channel, and became part of a global catastrophe with nearly 9,000 fatalities on so-called ‘migration routes’ worldwide.

Analysis covering 2018–2024 reveals that citizens from six countries—Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Syria, and Eritrea—have constituted approximately 70% of those detected crossing in small boats. 

More crucially, between 2018 and 2024, the asylum grant rate for people who arrived by small boat was 68%, substantially higher than the overall grant rate for asylum applicants. This confirms that the vast majority are indeed refugees fleeing persecution, directly contradicting political and media rhetoric that attaches criminality to the people and which criminalizes them.

III. CENTRE THE PEOPLE

We invite poems that center the people: the men, women, and children, with their hopes, dreams, families, and communities, who are reduced to victims. Poems that name the dead, and which show that these deaths are the direct, lethal result of political choices;

poems that resist the anonymizing language of statistics and politics;

poems that bring alive the perilous journey—the hopes, the cost, the preparation, the launch, the journey, the crossing, the fear, the voices of those drowning, and the traumatic burden on rescue teams, witnesses, and survivors;

poems that delve into the material reality of the drowned: their bodies, their unmet needs, and how death by drowning and death at sea are understood across cultures and in the cultures from which the people who are drowning are coming from; and

poems that extend allyship and solidarity, mourning the impact on families left behind and providing support for survivors and the bereaved.

IV, ENTER THE THE ENGLISH CHANNEL: A BIOSPHERE, SITE OF SACRIFICE AND HARVEST, AND A GRAVE

We invite poems that explore the English Channel as a multifaceted biosphere—a site of vibrant life, from bacteria to mammals—that has been tragically re-coded as a place of refugee sacrifice and death, and a grave.

We invite poems that look at the refugees who are drowning from the perspective of all beings and non-beings in the English Channel.

A. THE METABOLIC EVENT: BIOMASS AND CONSUMPTION

We invite poems that understand that some of the people who are drowning end up being consumed by marine life; that some of this marine life ends up being sold in fish markets, supermarkets and restaurants and ends up on the dinner plate, in British homes and restaurants, on political and corporate menus, and as fish and chips; 

poems that acknowledge the presence of the drowned refugees on menus and at the dinner table; poems that show how UK antipathy and border policies are turning Black and Brown refugees into biomass, involuntarily incorporated into a food chain that ends on British consumer plates;

poems that fuse the localized perspective of the UK (as the consumer) with the migrant experience (as the consumed), and which explore the idea that the crossing is a metabolic event that literally implicates the entire receiving nation;

poems that make the public metabolize the consequences of border policies, compelling them to realize that eating "fish and chips" is part of a cycle of ingestion;

poems that explore the plurality of the consumers and the plurality of the ways in which refugees and migrants are harvested, prepared, presented, sacrificed, and consumed;

poems on the elements, and on the man-made and natural systems and structures, and marine life and seafood that interact with the drowned refugees; poems on the marine life and seafood which are sold and end up on the dinner plate; poems on corporations earning billions from border surveillance and from containing, warehousing, processing and shipping refugees; politicians gaining power from xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia, and far-right ideologisation; and media organisations selling and profiting from anti-refugee rhetoric;

poems that explore the Channel's high-value yield (e.g., sole, plaice), generating millions of pounds in sales domestically and for export; poems on the uses the industry makes of African and Asian migrant labour on and off fishing vessels; poems that show the entire journey—from the sea to the plate, and poems that show the relationship between the industry's financial value, and how the value and consumption are subsidised or paid in exploited labour and drowned bodies.

B. MYTHOLOGICAL RECKONING

And we invite poems that draw on global mythological stories and archetypes (e.g., Charon, the Ferryman, or Mami Wata, the Water Spirit) to process the tragedy, and 

poems that affirm that refugees have a right to life, and a right to seek protection and refuge.

Image credit: Wallpaper by apache07 on Wallpapers.com

Open Call for Submissions - The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series

Forced Migration and The Arts, in association with CivicLeicester and Regularise, is inviting and accepting poems for possible inclusion in the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series, a multi-year, multi-volume initiative that is publishing poetry collections on the theme of African migration.

Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, 2024), the first collection in the series was released just before Christmas in December last year. 

Building on this, we are accepting poems 365 days a year.

We welcome submissions exploring any of the images, enslavement, issues, visa applications, deportations, time spent in immigration queues, triggers, drownings, borders you crossed, the histories, killings, borders that crossed you, causes, deaths, cases, brutalisation, armed conflict, lives, exploitation, hopes, births, dreams, criminalisations, demands, plundering, damagings, detentions, pillagings, realities, personal, family and community histories, the effect that funding from the European Commission and others is having on how African refugees and migrants are being treated on the continent, in deserts, at borders, in camps, in slave markets, in mass graves, at sea, in informal refugee camps, in roadside graves, on barges, in streets, in prisons, for fleeing conflict and persecution, outcomes, futures that we are seeing, being, witnessing, experiencing, living, dreaming, feeling, hearing, screaming, sensing, dying to get out of, dying to live, arrival, departures, journeying, memories, encounters, experiences -- past, present, future -- around African migration.

We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world. 

INSPIRATION

The series is inspired by the 2nd Edition of the Africa Migration Report published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

Speaking at the launch of the report, on 26 March 2024, H.E. Ambassador Minata Samate Cessouma, AUC Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs, and Social Development (HHS) described the report as a "joint initiative between the AU and IOM aimed at preserving historical perspectives, portraying the right narrative on African migration. While informing policy frameworks to support migration and human mobility on the Continent". 

We commend the AUC and IOM for the report and encourage the African Union to ensure they inform policy frameworks to support African migration, mobility and rights on and beyond the Continent. 

We stress that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right that should be enjoyed by all, including Africans.

MORE ON THE THEMES

We invite poems that explore the personal, familial, communal, continental, intercontinental, transnational past, present and possible futures of African migration across time and space, in and around this world and beyond.

What is Africa? Where is Africa? When is Africa?
What does it mean to be African? Who is African?
What is Africa and Africans' relationship or experience of or with migration?
What are the images, feelings, associations, realities, hopes, practicality, the day to day bits, dreams, pasts, presents, futures etc. of African migration? 

What are we seeing, hearing, feeling and sensing? 

What do we know? 

What are we not seeing, hearing, feeling, knowing, being, living, when, why, how?
The African migrant, who is he, she, they ...? Whose mother, father, sister, daughter, friend, relative? What is the present of the African migrant's past? 

What is the future of their tomorrow?
Who else is the African migrant coming into contact with? 

Who or what are they encountering where, when, and how? What is happening on that contact? Why are things happening this way? Is this new? How long has this been going on?
How are African governments, the African Union, the European Commission, the United Nations (UN), the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), NATO, ECOWAS, countries in Asia, North America, South America, Antarctica, Australia and the Caribbean, Africans on the continent, Africans in the diaspora, communities etc. ... how are they responding to African migration and migrants? What are the pasts, presents and futures of these responses?
What are Africans' experiences of migration on the continent and abroad?
What pasts, presents, futures, hopes, dreams, nightmares, joys, loves, memories, griefs, visions, seeds and so on are African migrants carrying, loving, singing, experiencing, living, gaining, losing, feeling, dancing, being, dreaming, moving through, reaching towards, living with, through, by etc.? 

What is happening to all this that they are carrying?

What are the pasts, presents and futures of African migration?

Please send the poems and short fiction to forcedmigrationandthearts@gmail.com 

The call for submissions is open 365 days of the year. 

All submissions received will be read and considered for publication in successive editions of the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

● Poems should be 40 lines or less, and short fiction,100 words or less.
● The poems and short fiction should be on the theme, African migration.
● Submissions must be in English. In the case of translated work, it is the translator’s responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holder of the original work.
● If submitting a poem or short fiction which has been previously published, please give details of where it has appeared and confirm that you are the copyright holder.
● Ideally submissions will be typed single spaced and submitted either in the body of an email or as a .doc attachment.
● Please include a short biography of 50 words or less. This will be included in the anthology if your poem is accepted. 
● You may submit a maximum of three poems or three pieces of short fiction or a combination of poems and short fiction. You do not have to submit all three at the same time, but the editors can only consider a maximum of three submissions.
● We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.
● Please send the poems and short fiction to forcedmigrationandthearts@gmail.com 

● The call for submissions is open 365 days of the year. 

● All submissions received will be read and considered for publication in successive editions of the Africa Migration Report.

NOTES

[1] CivicLeicester, a community media channel and indy publisher that uses digital and print technologies to highlight conversations of transnational significance, are publishers of poetry anthologies that include Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (2024), Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2023), Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (2022) and Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).

[2] Regularise is a collective of humans made up of migrants, citizens and allies who are committed to centreing and amplifying the voices and needs of undocumented migrants. The collective was founded in late 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, to address the years of sustained hardships that undocumented migrants experience in the UK and continues to organise and campaign for justice and for the rights of undocumented migrants.

[3] Forced Migration and The Arts is a global network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and activists from around the world. The network, initial stages of which where developed with support from the University of Manchester's Humanities Global Scholars Fund hosts monthly discussion panels around forced migration and the arts, and encourages mutual support and collaboration. A playlist of conversations we have hosted so far is accessible here. 

[4] The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is volunteer-led and is organised by Forced Migration and The Arts in association with CivicLeicester and the migrants' rights collective, Regularise. Our call for submissions is open 365 days a year because every day is Africa Day and because we would like to keep the conversation going until the African migrant is treated with dignity and respect on the continent and around the world. To cover some of the costs associated with the work, we have a crowdfunding appeal. Any support you can lend us in spreading the word about these and about books in the series will be appreciated.

Towards a Database of UK Plays on Migration, Refugee and Asylum Matters

Screenshot from "Driftwood", a performance by Faceless Arts.
Journeys Festival International. Leicester, 21 August 2016.

Forced Migration and The Arts and the community media channel and indie publisher CivicLeicester, the publishers of anthologies like Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (2024) and Welcome to Britain: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2023) would like to build a publicly accessible database of published and unpublished UK plays and related work on migration, refugee and asylum matters.

As part of this, we would also like to conduct interviews with playwrights, workshop leads, theatre companies, actors and others, and explore the possibility of publishing or supporting the publication, in book or other forms, of the plays and related works on these issues that individuals, community groups and companies have in their archives. 

If you or your group or company are among the people who have been devising, writing, producing or staging such plays, and you would like to be part of the effort, please email and let us know. 

RATIONALE 

We would like to do this because we are alarmed by the escalating, military-grade propaganda crusade that British politicians, the media and the state are deploying against refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and by how - instead of giving safe passage to refugees like Britain did with Ukrainian refugees in early 2022 - Britain is responding towards people fleeing other wars, conflict, persecution, the ravages of climate change and extreme poverty by bankrolling the human zoos or human safari parks that France has transformed informal refugee camps into. 

We are alarmed by how Britain is leaving the mainly Black and Brown refugees and migrants to drown in the English Channel, and is deploying the country's anti-terror and counter-intelligence infrastructure against refugees (the people using the 'small boats') under the guise of smashing people smugglers, and by how it is either imprisoning or warehousing others in immigration reception and detention centres and hotels where (because of the hostility and violence the state is engendering) the people are ending up at the receiving end acts of terrorism and arson from racists and Islamophobes. 

We are equally alarmed by the extreme poverty and hardship that the British state is subjecting the people to, by its refusal to give asylum seekers the right to work, by how it has built a >£5bn industry around systematic, systemic and institutionalised cruelty and violence towards refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and by how it is treated people like numbers to either be kept down or monetised.

At the same time, we are heartened by how, despite the vast amounts of resources, time, money and energy that the state continues to deploy towards turning refugees, asylum seekers and migrants into hate objects, public opinion remains largely in favour of giving refuge to those who need it, and to Britain remaining open to migrants.

We believe that part of the reason why people in Britian remain this positive is because of work that refugee and migrant support groups, schools, communities, faith groups, artists, playwrights and theatre companies, large and small, up and down the country, have been doing with and around migration and around refugee and asylum matters. 

We believe the database, the publications and the interviews and conversations around the plays and the issues can further support this work.

ABOUT FORCED MIGRATION AND THE ARTS & CIVICLEICESTER

Forced Migration and The Arts is an international network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and art spaces for conversation looking at work taking place at the intersection where forced migration and the arts meet. 

The network, initial stages of which were developed with support from the University of Manchester’s Humanities Global Scholars Fund, hosts monthly indabas or discussion forums on the last Thursday of each month and encourages mutual support and collaboration.

Established in 2010, CivicLeicester is a community media channel and indie publisher that uses print and digital technologies, social media platforms, the arts, and online and in-person events to highlight conversations of transnational interest and significance. 

Books we have edited and published include: 

• Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (2024), 
• Welcome to Britain: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2023), 
• Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2020), and 
• Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).

[The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series] In Conversation with Jamaican-American author and LGBT rights activist, Thomas Glave. Online, Wedns., 6 Nov. 2024 (6pm-7.30pm UK Time)

Join us for an evening of conversation with fiction and nonfiction writer, Thomas Glave. 

Attendance and participation are free and open to all. 

As part of the event, Thomas Glave will talk about the work he is doing interspaced with readings from the works.

Glave will also share thoughts and reflections on what works of literature add to the conversation taking place at a familial, community, national, continental and international level on African migration and on Africans on the continent, in the diaspora and on the move. 

The conversation and readings will be followed by a Q&A session with all present. 

REGISTRATION

To attend, please register here.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER 

Thomas Glave is the author of four books, including The Torturer's Wife (City Lights Publishers, 2013) and Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh (Akashic Books, 2013), and editor of the anthology Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles (Duke University Press Books, 2008). The recipient of two Lambda Literary awards and a Dayton Literary Peace Prize nomination, Glave is a two-time Fulbright Scholar, an honorary visiting professor at the University of Liverpool and professor of English and creative writing at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He has been Martin Luther King Jr Visiting Professor at MIT, Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick, and a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He is a trustee of Writing West Midlands and Peepal Tree Press, and a member of the editorial boards of the journals Transition and Wasafiri. His most recent work appears in the anthology Encounters with James Baldwin: Celebrating 100 Years (Supernova Books, 2024). 

The conversation takes place as part of the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology readings and conversations series.

ABOUT THE AFRICA MIGRATION REPORT POETRY ANTHOLOGY SERIES

Organised by Forced Migration and The Arts in collaboration with CivicLeicester and Regularise, the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series draws inspiration from the 2nd Edition of the Africa Migration Report, jointly published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in March 2024. Through poetry, the anthology series explores multifaceted narratives surrounding African migration, capturing personal, familial, community, national and international histories and experiences of African migration. Because every day is Africa Day, our call for submissions is open 365 days a year.

Forced Migration and The Arts is an international network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and art spaces for conversation looking at work taking place at the intersection where forced migration and the arts meet. Developed with support from the University of Manchester’s Humanities Global Scholars Fund, the network hosts monthly indabas or discussion forums on the last Thursday of each month and encourages mutual support and collaboration.

Regularise is a migrant-led collective founded in late 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The collective aims to address the years of sustained hardship that undocumented migrants experience in the UK and continues to organise and campaign for justice and for the rights of undocumented migrants.

CivicLeicester is a community publisher that uses print and digital technologies, social media platforms, the arts, and online and in-person events to highlight conversations of transnational interest and significance. Books we have edited and published include Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2023), Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (2022) and Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).

[Forced Migration and The Arts] Claire French, In conversation with Kasia Lech, author of Multilingual Dramaturgies Towards New European Theatre (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024). Online, Fri., 8 Nov. 2024 (3pm-5pm GMT; 4pm-6pm CET)

Europe – as a geopolitical concept, its residents, communities, and countries – is a multilingual space where people communicate in multiple languages such as Polish Sign Language, Ukrainian, Arabic, Tamazight, Spanish, Sami, Greek, and Shelta. These languages may arise from ethnicity, a country, or a region but also from disability contexts. They interact within multiple physical, geographical, socio-political, and virtual spaces, and open new possibilities for theatre.

Join Kasia Lech (University of Amsterdam) and Claire French (University of Aarhus) as they discuss Lech’s new book Multilingual Dramaturgies: Towards New European Theatre (Springer 2024). Written in a dialogue with diverse artists and their languages, it argues for multilingual theatre's central role in Europe’s futures. The book reveals a complex set of negotiations involved in the creative and political tasks of staging multilingualism, as well as funding and working models. Through different theatrical, historical, cultural, and geographic contexts, the book features over 60 languages that arise from state, ethnicity, region, and disability. Multilingual Dramaturgies offers new ways of understanding identity in European contexts.

REGISTRATION

To attend, please register here.

NOTES

The event is hosted by Forced Migration and The Arts, and the Performance and Migration Working Group established and coordinated by Yana Meerzon (University of Ottawa, Canada), Steve E. Wilmer (Trinity College, Dublin), and Sheetala Bhat (York University, Canada). The group has been meeting online during the 2023-2024 academic year and has been accepted for a three-year partnership with CATR (Canadian Association for Theatre Research). It has also been accepted at the IFTR (International Federation for Theatre Research). The work of the group is supported through the Palgrave Studies in Performance and Migration book series co-edited by Meerzon and Wilmer.

Forced Migration and The Arts is an international network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and art spaces for conversation looking at work taking place at the intersection where forced migration and the arts meet. Developed with support from the University of Manchester’s Humanities Global Scholars Fund, the network hosts monthly indabas or discussion forums usually on the last Thursday of each month and encourages mutual support and collaboration.

[Invitation] The Africa Migration Report Poetry Readings and Conversations: Sessions 1 -3: Online, 2pm-3.30pm; 4pm-5.30pm & 6pm-7.30pm UK Time; Online, Thurs., 17 October 2024

Join us for an afternoon and evening of poetry and conversation on the theme of African migration.

As part of the readings and conversation a number of poets featured in the upcoming, African Migration Report: an Anthology of Poems; Volume 1 & 2 (CivicLeicester, forthcoming) will share thoughts, experiences and poetry on the theme of African migration, and share the vision they have on African migration and how we get to that future.

The readings and conversations will be followed by a Q&A with all present.

Attendance and participation are free and open to all.

REGISTRATION

To attend, please register here.

THE SESSIONS

The conversations are taking place in three sessions, each with a different set of poems, namely:

• Session 1: 2pm-3.30pm (UK Time) (Details), featuring poets Ayo Ayoola-Amale, Philippa Hatendi-Louiceus, Tifany MarSah, M Sahr Nouwah, Collins Chibunna Nwachukwu, Joseph C Ogbonna, Omobola Osamor, Adaora Raji, and Patrick Kapuya Tshiuma,
• Session 2: 4pm-5.30pm (Details), featuring poets Jo Blackwood, Anayo Dioha, Samuel Julius Habakkuk Kargbo, Ilan Kelman, Anton Krueger, Octavia McBride-Ahebee, Remind Mugwambani, Francis Muzofa, J.O. Neill, and Ejime Ijeoma Victory,
• Session 3: 6pm-7.30pm (Details), featuring poets Oluwaseyi Adebola, Abiola Agbaje, Jim Aitken, Brian Siang'ani Boyí, Barrington Gordon, Gorrety Yogo, Monica Manolachi, Mariam Mohammed, and Epiphanie Mukasano.

We will be using the same link for all three sessions. Once registered, you can join a session or sessions of your choice.

NOTES

Organised by Forced Migration and The Arts in collaboration with CivicLeicester and Regularise, the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series draws inspiration from the 2nd Edition of the Africa Migration Report, jointly published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in March 2024. Through poetry, the series explores multifaceted narratives surrounding African migration, capturing personal, familial, community, national and international histories and experiences of African migration. Because every day is Africa Day, our call for submissions is open 365 days a year.

Forced Migration and The Arts is an international network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and art spaces for conversation looking at work taking place at the intersection where forced migration and the arts meet. Developed with support from the University of Manchester’s Humanities Global Scholars Fund, the network hosts monthly indabas or discussion forums on the last Thursday of each month and encourages mutual support and collaboration.

Regularise is a migrant-led collective founded in late 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The collective aims to address the years of sustained hardships that undocumented migrants experience in the UK and continues to organise and campaign for justice and for the rights of undocumented migrants.

CivicLeicester is a community publisher that uses print and digital technologies, social media platforms, the arts, and online and in-person events to highlight conversations of transnational interest and significance. Books we have edited and published include Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2023), Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (2022) and Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).