In South Sudan, the rumor that the Murle people suffer from infertility evolved into a politically instrumental myth used to justify child abduction, securitization, and systemic exclusion. Rooted in colonial misrepresentations, the claim pathologizes Murle reproduction and legitimizes violence. Drawing on ethnography and archival, medical, and humanitarian sources, the article conceptualizes this narrative as a rumor-myth: a necropolitical discourse that transforms speculation into governance. Though lacking evidence, the infertility narrative endures through repetition and political utility. Counter-oral histories challenge these racialized fictions, revealing how communities contest exclusion and expose the broader structures of power that sustain scapegoating, violence, and inequality.

Studies on Chinese cultural and religious engagement abroad are often framed through the lens of state-driven soft power. Drawing on the case study of the Zambia Shaolin Cultural Center (ZSSC), I challenge this state-centric interpretation, emphasizing the collaborative, relational, and fluid nature of China–Africa cultural and religious encounters. Inspired by “assemblage thinking” and based on fieldwork observation and interviews, I examine the heterogeneity, fluidity, and adaptability of Shaolin’s operations in Zambia. I argue that ZSCC should be viewed as an evolving assemblage where diverse actors and elements interact and co-create meaning through adaptation and negotiation.

Project a Black Planet: Art and Culture of Panafrica was co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) and MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, in collaboration with KANAL-Centre Pompidou Bruxelles. The exhibition, held at the Art Institute of Chicago, ran from December 15, 2024 to March 30, 2025 and was curated by Antawan I. Byrd, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Adom Getachew, and Matthew S. Witkovsky. It was partly funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a relevant detail within the context of my viewing.

In 1948, the Nationalist Party of South Africa implemented apartheid, a policy of strict racial segregation that governed the country for forty-six years until 1994. Apartheid’s proponents legislated several measures to entrench racial separation under the direction of its proclaimed architect Hendrik Verwoerd. This included passing the Group Areas Act, which set aside enclaves for different racial groups, and the Population Registration Act which required every citizen to declare a racial category in 1950. These promulgations further enforced the 1945 Groups Areas Act. Passed during the segregation era from 1910 to 1948, this law determined where Africans could live, work, and travel within the metropolitan spaces.

Transnational cultural encounters between Africa and China, such as Chinese artist Pu Yingwei’s exploration of Kenya’s dam infrastructure and the reception of French-Senegalese director Mati Diop’s film Dahomey on African artifact repatriation among Chinese youth, generate new sites of knowledge circulation and epistemic inquiry. These exchanges exemplify an approach of “reflexivity,” which emphasizes critical reflection on one’s own positionality, research processes, and the broader conditions shaping knowledge production. Oriented toward mutual reference and epistemic affinity between Asia and Africa, this approach promotes a relational mode of knowledge-making attentive to both shared historical legacies and existing structural disparities.