This research project attempts to trace the phenomenon of the Maghreb’s postcolonial haunting of French spaces in a selection of films, songs, and visual arts. It will explore potential continuums of possible future revolutions emerging from protracted postcolonial traces. It delves into how postcolonial traces, such as Algerian ‘ghosts’, perform a decolonial resistance in the form of hauntology that is understood within indigenous contexts.

In parallel, it will investigate the persistence of martyrdom as a (post)colonial condition within the Algerian context specifically and the Maghreb generally.

These topics invite questions regarding the post-revolution/independence poetics of space in film and exhibition spaces as well as conceptualizations of ‘home.’ How is the sense of space altered in the post-independence vacuum in which the ‘utopias’ of post-revolution have not (yet) materialized? Additionally, is it possible to incorporate these questions within the framework of Afrofuturism- especially regarding agency, alternative presents-futures, and powerful, collective imaginations at work?