Voices from the Black diaspora in Spain

This chapter examines the ambivalent subject positionings of voices from the Black diaspora in Spain who, confronted with a stigmatising discourse on people of African descent in mainstream society, articulate liminal and transcultural identity constructions that challenge the stereotyping of Afrospaniards as outsiders and give rise to notions of multiple and decentred belongings. Along with bringing up a critical discussion of labels, such as “Afrospanish”, in dialogue with the fields of Afroeuropean and postcolonial studies, the chapter is to be situated within Spanish literary and cultural studies. Correspondingly, it analyses how literature and other cultural texts can serve as spaces to confront exclusionist narratives of Otherness and to imagine subjects that are travelling in-between spaces. The main focus of this contribution, which broaches examples from weblogs and song lyrics as well, is poetry written by Agnès Agboton and Abdoulaye Bilal Traoré. Both authors evoke complex networks of belongings by insisting on enriching moments of cultural difference and articulating dynamic movements of continuous re-positioning.