Emigrationist Politics and Imaginings in the South

Back to Africa proposals in principle are almost universally dismissed as escapist or associated with essentialist romantic ideas about black cultural unity. Critics dwell on the impracticality of such schemes, but any wholesale dismissal of the desire to leave this place and find a new home misses what these movements might tell us about how black people have imagined real freedom. The idea of going back to Africa was one part of a larger emigrationist politics that has been pervasive throughout history.