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Africa and the African Diaspora: New Directions of Study
By: Patick Manning The 'African diaspora', as an object of study, centers first of all on populations descended from and at a distance from populations of the 'African continent' or 'African homeland', the latter being the object of African studies. The point of these definitions is to make explicit the distinctions between 'homeland' and 'diaspora' as objects of study and between 'African studies' and 'Africa-diaspora studies' as scholarly fields. Combining the terms enables us to discuss the interplay of homeland and diaspora, African studies and Africa-diaspora studies. |
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The African Diaspora
By: Philip D. Curtin Historians wrote about the slave trade and slavery, but only in a national context. The African continent from which all these people came, was covered in the public mind by an image of savage existence in deep forest, derived mainly from Tarzan movies reinforced by the echoes of pseudo-scientific racism, suggesting the inferiority of Black people. A major change in the image of African people came from the African independence movement and the decline in elitism and ethnocentricity among historians. |
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The African Diaspora: Toward an Ethnography of Diasporic Identification
By: Edmund T. Gordon and Mark Anderson This article offers an analysis of theoretical models developed around the concept of the African Diaspora. These models either concentrate on essential features common to various peoples of African descent or focus on diaspora as a condition of hybridity characterized by displacement and “dispersed identities.” The authors, calling for ethnographic attention to processes of diasporic identification, argue for a shift in focus toward analysis of the processes through which individuals identify with one another as “Black” or “African.” |
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African (Black) Diaspora History, Latin American History
By: Ben Vinson III Black studies often focuses on English-speaking nations, while there is much to learn about the African Diaspora’s experience in Latin America. |
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From Black History to Diasporan History: Brazilian Abolition in Afro-Atlantic Context
By: Kim D. Butler This article examines the construction and use of a diasporan framework for analyzing Afro-Atlantic history during the post-abolition era. It summarizes the findings of the author's research on the first fifty years after the end of slavery in Brazil (1888-1938). The use of a diasporan framework illuminates patterns, otherwise obscured by traditional monographic approaches, that can be compared with other Afro-Atlantic communities. |
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The Story of Rufino: Slavery, Freedom, and Islam in the Black Atlantic
By: Joao José Reis, Flavio dos Santos Gomes, and Marcus J. M. de Carvalho Translated by: H. Sabrina Gledhill The book tells the story of Rufino, who was captured by Brazilian slave traders and later purchased his freedom. He became a slave trader until his arrest and trial in Sierra Leone where he attended Quranic and Arabic classes. He was arrested again due to rumors of an African slave revolt, when Arabic manuscripts found in his possession. During his interrogation, Rufino told his life story, which is used to reconstruct the world in which he lived under slavery and in freedom on African shores, aboard slave ships, and in Brazil. |
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Diaspora: Genealogies of Semantics and Transcultural Comparison
By: Martin Baumann The concept of diaspora is a tool to show how external conditions affect traditional religions, when religious communities are established in foreign countries. Once freed from its restriction to Jewish history and experience, the term diaspora is increasingly used to refer to processes of dispersion and dislocated communities. This new concept of diaspora forms a basis for transcultural and comparative work. |
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Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda
By: Joseph E. Harris Since ancient times, Africans have traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean and settled both as free and enslaved people. They traveled as merchants, proselytizers for Islam and Christianity, entertainers, soldiers and sailors, concubines and laborers, and as adventurers. They have shared their cultures, adapted to host cultures, and contributed to the development of overseas societies; and many of the descendants of those settlers remain in a number of countries around the world today. Their presence therefore is essentially global. |
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How the West was One: On the Uses and Limitations of Diaspora
By: Robin D. G. Kelley The purpose of this very brief article is to map out points of convergence where the study of the African diaspora might illuminate aspects of the European- New World encounter. At the same time, I want to draw attention to the ways specific formulations of diaspora can also keep us from seeing the full-range of Black transnational political, cultural, and intellectual links. I end with a few speculative remarks on how we might broaden our understanding of Black identities and political movements by exploring other streams of internationalism that are not limited to the Black world. |
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