Alegropolitics

Professor Kabir is currently writing a book, Alegropolitics, on African heritage partner dance forms (salsa, tango, kizomba, bachataetc.). Through these dances, that combine the European-derived partner-hold with African-derived rhythmic elements, she explores the paradox of unequal and violent encounters generating the shared exhilaration of dance as partnership. To explain this paradox, she uses theories of creolisation – the innovations, improvisations, collaborations, and compromises arising from unexpected encounters between people transplanted to unfamiliar spaces – to articulate the relationship between trauma, resistance, and survival as 'alegropolitics', or the politics of collective joy.