Celebrities and Afropolitans: Managing Private Affect in Transnational Relations

Celebrity has become a way of mediating between proximity and distance in the global as well as the specific context. As the paradigms of ‘people we know so well’ that are simultaneously ‘just like us’ and ‘exemplary,’ celebrities have become proxy philanthropists, statesmen, executives and healers. This paper will explore how saturating communications between the global North and South with celebrity content normalizes the celebrity modality of ‘Africa’. This presentation will explore how in the aid celebrity modality, expertise becomes celebritized and circulated, while affective commitment is bestowed on emotional sovereigns for management-linking Western donors with Afropolitans.