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Decolonizing aid in Black Panther

ABSTRACT International aid often functions as a neocolonial extension of colonial power structures. Aid to Africa is particularly problematic because of ideologies casting the continent as backward and devoid of agency, which have material consequences for African lives. Afrofuturist imaginings offer a space where these politics of aid can be challenged, as Afrofuturism centers Africa and the African diaspora in our understandings of futurity, and works to undo racist, sexist, and Westerncentric ideologies in the present. In this essay, I analyze the 2018 Afrofuturist film Black Panther for its representations of the politics of aid. Ultimately, I argue that although Black Panther challenges some neocolonial assumptions by staging an African country that is developed in ways that break Western norms, it reproduces and even strengthens other aspects of coloniality by portraying Wakanda as an exceptional African nation, equating economic development with morality, and reinforcing the idea of aid as a universal good.