‘I have the blood of Africa within me’: The case of Obama’s reminder of his grandfather humiliation during colonial times, in his speech to African leaders

Personalization being a major change in contemporary democratic persuasive endeavor, the paper is based on the general idea that leaders may sound more persuasive by using self-disclosure communications. The study presented is a first tentative to explore how Obama might profit from his references to his own life story to enhance intergroup reconciliation processes, when speaking officially to leaders of other countries. The in-depth multimodal analyses of the opening parts of two important political speeches (in Accra on July 11 2009, and in Jakarta on November 10 2010) allow to detect Obama’s different uses of autobiographical memories, sometimes linked to personal aspects and some other times more focused on social and historical aspects of his life, without conveying any self-exposure intent. Consequences for further studies as well as for the need of a more complex concept of personalization are discussed.