In
Afro-Atlantic Flight: Speculative Returns and the Black Fantastic (Duke University Press, 2017),
Michelle D. Commander examines the (im)possibility of literal and figurative returns to Africa of African-descended peoples throughout the diaspora. Using analysis inspired by "the ways in which the enslaved and their descendants took and have continued to take back control over their bodies", and focusing on cultural production, Commander traces the points of intersection and divergence between the two modes of return, rather than dealing with them as mutually exclusive.
Mireille Djenno is the African Studies Librarian at Indiana University. She can be reached at mdjenno@indiana.edu.