Arild Säll: "Making Sense of Africa: Swedes in the Congo Free State, 1880–1920"

Abstract:

This dissertation examines how Swedes involved in the Congo Free State made sense of “Africa”, and how their experiences were later transformed into cultural memory. I argue that “Congo” in the late nineteenth century functioned as a key site through which “Africa” was conceptualized in Sweden, shaped by broader European discourses on race, civilisation, religion, and human evolution. The project combines postcolonial theory with cultural memory studies to analyse how meaning was produced, circulated, and institutionalised across texts, images, and other objects; moments when sense-making broke down or became unstable will form one important focal point.