Abstract
Stories of Africans displaced by war taking high risks to get to an often inhospitable Western
Europe are frequently in the news. But sub-Saharan Africa is the region which hosts the
largest population of refugees in the world. Refugees who flee to sub-Saharan African
countries are also frequently subjected to xenophobic exclusion and violence by people who
sometimes claim to be defending rights and privileges associated with national belonging.
My aims are to point out new avenues for novel insights into the interrelations between
xenophobia, disruption and nation by a) giving attractive detail and depth to the discussion
using Director Akin Omotoso’s Man on Ground (2011), b) putting forward arguments against
xenophobic stereotypes and violence, c) pointing out some pitfalls of nation-building, and by
d) finding and imagining human ground amidst disruptive nationhood. What is offered is a
new synthesis of philosophical insights that defies distinctions between African and Western
philosophy. Going beyond nativism and xenophobia, this synthesis speaks of the need and
possibility to craft common human ground that enables people to become the most they can
be.