Afrofeminism in France: Political Autonomy as a Compass: A Reading List by Fania Noël

Photo of the Coordination des femmes noires (the Coordination of Black Women) protesting in Paris, France. March 8, 1980. Photo Credit: Catherine Deudon. Bibliothèque Marguerite-Durand. Roger-Violet.

Photo of the Coordination des femmes noires (the Coordination of Black Women) protesting in Paris, France. March 8, 1980. Photo Credit: Catherine Deudon. Bibliothèque Marguerite-Durand. Roger-Violet.

A reading list by Fania Noël from her teach-in “Afrofeminism in France: A Political Autonomy as a Compass” for The School For Black Feminist Politics and our “Afrofeminisms in Europe” series.

On Monday, February 22nd, 2021 at 1 PM EST/7 PM CET, activist and scholar Fania Noël led the teach-in “Afrofeminism In France: Political Autonomy as a Compass.”

About the teach-in: The Coordination of Black Women (Coordination femmes noires) held their first public meeting in Paris in October of 1977. Founded in May 1976 (two years after the formation of the Combahee River Collective in the United States), the Coordination did not escape the fate of the invisibilization of Black women and our movements in France. Afrofeminists operating largely online, sharing texts and analyses, became visible around the year 2013 by problematizing issues in the anti-slavery and anti-colonial struggles. This emergence was largely seen as a trend. A grammar of novelty was mobilized to both describe and de-legitimize these forms of activism, especially in contrast to older, more historically legitimized struggles: class, of course, but also issues around race. Afrofeminist collectives faced many accusations from different actors ( i.e. State, the right, the white left, white feminist organizations, anti-racist movement in France, and also Black organization predominantly led by men).

Amongst those different groups, many wanted to keep us around to add color to group photos of demonstrations and to diversify the movement on paper without being accountable to our political demands considered a minority. Afrofeminists face also another form of erasure from abroad where grassroots collective Afrofeminist organizing is erased in favor of Black women public figures with large audiences or scholars. This teach-in focused on how radical Afrofeminist politics and organizing evolve and thrive in France and how we became determined to neither disappear nor allow ourselves to be walked on and choose political autonomy as a compass.

Fania’s teach-in is a part of our “Afrofeminisms in Europe” series, which aims to be a political interrogation, meditation, and celebration of European Afrofeminisms and Black feminisms.

About the teach-in curator: Fania Noel is a Haitian-born, French Afrofeminist organizer, thinker, and writer. Fania is an experienced organizer in grassroots movements against racism, specifically anti-Blackness and Black feminism in France. In addition to being part of the MWASI – Collectif Afroféministe and Coordination Action Autonome Noire (C.A.A.N), she is the co-creator of the Decolonial Summer Camp, a five-day anti-racism training course in France. In 2014, she founded Revue AssiégéEs (Besieged), a political publishing project led by women, queer and trans people of color—where she is the actual publication director. In 2019, her book “Afro-Communautaire: Appartenir à nous-mêmes (Afro-Community: To Belong to Ourselves) has been published by Syllepse Edition (a French radical publishing house). The impetus of this small manifesto is an afro-revolutionary and anti-imperialist utopia for the political organization of Black people in France against racial politics and neo-liberalism. She is a PhD candidate in sociology at The New School for Social Research and her areas of research are Africana studies, critical race theory, Black feminism, materialist feminism and capitalism studies.

Afrofeminism in France: Political Autonomy as a Compass Reading List

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