Biography

Emma-Lee Amponsah is a PhD researcher in Communication Studies at Ghent University. She holds a BA degree in Religious Studies from VU University Amsterdam and an interuniversity MA degree in Gender and Diversity Studies. She is a founding member of Belgo-Dutch grass-root organization Black Speaks Back, which is an online platform for and by the diverse and underrepresented narratives from the Afro-diaspora. Since September 2018 she works on an FWO-funded research project titled ‘RE:colonization. An exploration of Afro-Belgium and the ‘living’ memory of the colonial past in, through and beyond contemporary media’, supervised by prof. Stijn Joye (Ghent University) and Dr. Francesca Sobande (Cardiff University). Her research explores the emergence of a Black cultural memory in Belgium through media practices and technologies of mediated remembrance. It builds upon a variety of theoretical approaches such as Black and Africana Studies, Memory Studies, Cultural Media Critique, Black Feminist Theory, Decolonial Theory…. The overall aim of her research is to shed light on the various actions of contesting Belgium’s “colonial memory loss” with a special focus on Blackness, (imagined) community, self-representations and counter memories as a form of cultural resistance to mainstream discourses on and representations of the colonial past.

Contact