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Africa does not exist

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Jeg er blevet mere og mere træt af betegnelsen Afrika. Ikke alene er det en stærkt generaliserende betegnelse for et stort geografisk område, men anvendelsen af Afrika virker også stigmatiserende. Måske burde vi derfor tænke os mere om, når vi bruger ordet. The notion of Africa is getting more and more on my nerves. There is something problemtic about how we in the western world perceive places on the African continent and the people who live there. I have just finished reading the novel "Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes" (One must care much for men) written by Marie Darrieussecq. The male character Kouhouesso, a man from Congo, says "Africa does not exist". It is his response to his French lover Solange, when she declares that she wants to go to Africa. She insists and "he laughed his perculiar and sharp laughter, which sounded like he had borrowed it from another body". Thereafter he continues: "Africa is a fiction created by anthropoligists. T