Brazza and the Affective Afterlives of Colonialism in Congo

In this article I suggest looking at memory as a symbolic field animated by the emotional tensions that emerge from popular interpretations of state hegemonic narratives. These affective engagements challenge the binary framings of memory as a contested project between the elite’s script and the resistance from below. Using the iconography of the Brazza Mausoleum, I argue that colonial memory in Congo acts as a spectral force through which the grievances from the colonial past convey meaning to the frustrations experienced through the postcolonial state. Colonial history returns as a phantom haunting the unfulfilled promises of the independent state.