Anticolonial imaginaries in Mali: The longue durée of sovereignty, security, and geopolitics

The Sahel region of West Africa has in past years shifted its geopolitical position: coup d’états in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have resulted in rejection of international and European interventions, in the name of anticolonial sovereignty, and the reshuffling of international alliances. This article goes beyond typical Eurocentric analyses of African countries as pawns in Russia’s geopolitical takeover, by unpacking how anticolonial imaginaries inform the daily understandings, political strategy, and claims to authority of actors in Mali’s political landscape. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bamako in 2022 and 2023, we trace continuities and breaks in anticolonial imaginaries since the time before Mali’s independence in 1960, as articulated and enacted by anticolonial political movements and former and current governments. We identify four main components of the concept of anticolonial imaginaries and these guide our analysis: territorial sovereignty, pan-African unity, anti-imperialism, and economic sovereignty. Anticolonial imaginaries bring analytical attention to African epistemologies and agency, and are a crucial driver of contemporary African political activism and quest to redefine the global order.