Introduction

This introduction presents an overall view of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book attempts to emphasize the complexity of the African experience and the ways in which Africans participated in world politics in unlikely spaces, namely through expressive culture. Furthermore, The book also addresses the ways that Africans continue to actively engage in domestic and international policy debates through rhetoric, expression, and a long history of African philosophies that shape both the politics of daily life and international discourses on development and politics. It attempts to shed light on these domestic and international insertions, in addition to the concrete African philosophies that shape African politics in the past, present, and future. The book also delves into the intricacies surrounding expression and domestic and international politics from an African perspective through language issues, globalization, assimilation, and isolationism.