E. Kofi Agorsah
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264782
- eISBN:
- 9780191754012
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264782.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter examines imbalances in approaches to the archaeological study of the history of slavery in Africa and the African Diaspora. It argues that the main causes of interpretive problems are a ...
More
This chapter examines imbalances in approaches to the archaeological study of the history of slavery in Africa and the African Diaspora. It argues that the main causes of interpretive problems are a lack of coordination between disciplines and regional specialisms. A ‘Kormantse’ case study, bridging Africa and the Caribbean, is used to demonstrate how archaeological endeavours may attempt to address such imbalances in understanding African cultures. Yet, despite recent gains, most archaeological researchers and projects continue to maintain their guarded interests, even where it is clear that they need to reach out and connect the two sides of the Atlantic.Less
This chapter examines imbalances in approaches to the archaeological study of the history of slavery in Africa and the African Diaspora. It argues that the main causes of interpretive problems are a lack of coordination between disciplines and regional specialisms. A ‘Kormantse’ case study, bridging Africa and the Caribbean, is used to demonstrate how archaeological endeavours may attempt to address such imbalances in understanding African cultures. Yet, despite recent gains, most archaeological researchers and projects continue to maintain their guarded interests, even where it is clear that they need to reach out and connect the two sides of the Atlantic.
Yvonne Daniel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036538
- eISBN:
- 9780252093579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036538.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This chapter examines the foundation of Diaspora dance and its relationship to African dance and music. It first considers the importance of dance in the African Diaspora and its relation to ...
More
This chapter examines the foundation of Diaspora dance and its relationship to African dance and music. It first considers the importance of dance in the African Diaspora and its relation to Caribbean dance before discussing the emergence of several types of African movement styles that echo across the Diaspora today, along with the introduction of African-derived dance practices to the mainstream European, Asian, and American dance worlds. It then takes a look at some of the performers who have brought Caribbean dance into global view and goes on to analyze particular ways of moving and preferences for certain dance formations. It also reviews some important assumptions that accompany Diaspora dance and its performance and concludes with an assessment of the consequences of Diaspora performance, noting how the efforts of Diaspora performers reinforce dance practices across the Diaspora as resilient and joyful body communication.Less
This chapter examines the foundation of Diaspora dance and its relationship to African dance and music. It first considers the importance of dance in the African Diaspora and its relation to Caribbean dance before discussing the emergence of several types of African movement styles that echo across the Diaspora today, along with the introduction of African-derived dance practices to the mainstream European, Asian, and American dance worlds. It then takes a look at some of the performers who have brought Caribbean dance into global view and goes on to analyze particular ways of moving and preferences for certain dance formations. It also reviews some important assumptions that accompany Diaspora dance and its performance and concludes with an assessment of the consequences of Diaspora performance, noting how the efforts of Diaspora performers reinforce dance practices across the Diaspora as resilient and joyful body communication.
Yvonne Daniel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036538
- eISBN:
- 9780252093579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036538.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This chapter examines the histories and connections between Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean by focusing on sacred Caribbean dance rituals. It begins with a discussion of African-derived rituals ...
More
This chapter examines the histories and connections between Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean by focusing on sacred Caribbean dance rituals. It begins with a discussion of African-derived rituals in sacred dance, paying attention to how dance reveals and forwards sacred potential and how a relationship between the sacred and the secular is forged in African Diaspora contexts. It then considers how similar religious and dance structures have emerged across the Diaspora from common beliefs and social conditions that were shared by thousands of Africans. It also explores African-derived sacred dance practices in the Caribbean islands, namely: French/Kreyol, English/Creole, Spanish Caribbean, and Dutch Caribbean sacred practices. Furthermore, it describes compares Atlantic Afro-Latin sacred practices, including those in Brazil, Suriname, and Uruguay. The chapter concludes with Afrogenic comparisons of ritual Diaspora dance.Less
This chapter examines the histories and connections between Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean by focusing on sacred Caribbean dance rituals. It begins with a discussion of African-derived rituals in sacred dance, paying attention to how dance reveals and forwards sacred potential and how a relationship between the sacred and the secular is forged in African Diaspora contexts. It then considers how similar religious and dance structures have emerged across the Diaspora from common beliefs and social conditions that were shared by thousands of Africans. It also explores African-derived sacred dance practices in the Caribbean islands, namely: French/Kreyol, English/Creole, Spanish Caribbean, and Dutch Caribbean sacred practices. Furthermore, it describes compares Atlantic Afro-Latin sacred practices, including those in Brazil, Suriname, and Uruguay. The chapter concludes with Afrogenic comparisons of ritual Diaspora dance.
Tunde Adeleke
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604732931
- eISBN:
- 9781604732948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604732931.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The prevailing and dominant images and constructions of Africa, as well as the dynamics of the ever-changing experiences of blacks over historical time and space, are reflected in how it was ...
More
The prevailing and dominant images and constructions of Africa, as well as the dynamics of the ever-changing experiences of blacks over historical time and space, are reflected in how it was perceived, conceived, and utilized by blacks in Diaspora. Black Diaspora perceptions of, reactions to, and utilization of Africa were defined and shaped by five paradigms/perspectives: civilization, cultural-nationalism, black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, instrumentalism, and Afrocentricity. This chapter examines the African Diaspora’s conceptual and paradigmatic utilizations and representations of Africa. It first looks at the encounter between Europe and Africa that brought two fundamentally different civilizations together, as well as the link between culture and the civilizational paradigm. It then discusses black nationalism and Pan-Africanism before concluding with an analysis of the Afrocentrism tradition in relation to a monolithic construction of black Diaspora identity.Less
The prevailing and dominant images and constructions of Africa, as well as the dynamics of the ever-changing experiences of blacks over historical time and space, are reflected in how it was perceived, conceived, and utilized by blacks in Diaspora. Black Diaspora perceptions of, reactions to, and utilization of Africa were defined and shaped by five paradigms/perspectives: civilization, cultural-nationalism, black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, instrumentalism, and Afrocentricity. This chapter examines the African Diaspora’s conceptual and paradigmatic utilizations and representations of Africa. It first looks at the encounter between Europe and Africa that brought two fundamentally different civilizations together, as well as the link between culture and the civilizational paradigm. It then discusses black nationalism and Pan-Africanism before concluding with an analysis of the Afrocentrism tradition in relation to a monolithic construction of black Diaspora identity.
Sherwin K. Bryant, Ben Vinson, and Rachel Sarah O’Toole
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036637
- eISBN:
- 9780252093715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036637.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This book expands the framework for charting the African Diaspora to Spanish America. Drawing upon a variety of texts from the Spanish American colonies, it explores the connections and disjunctures ...
More
This book expands the framework for charting the African Diaspora to Spanish America. Drawing upon a variety of texts from the Spanish American colonies, it explores the connections and disjunctures between colonial Latin America and the African Diaspora in the Spanish empires. It examines what Leo Garofalo calls the “shape of Diaspora,” tracing its early extension into Iberia in the fifteenth century and its reach beyond the Atlantic basin into the Pacific/Andean territories ever since. The book is organized into three sections. Part 1 discusses voluntary and forced migrations across the Atlantic, focusing on three distinct cases of identity construction that intersect with ongoing debates in African Diaspora scholarship regarding the models of continuity and creolization in the Americas. Part 2 considers how enslaved and free people used their rights as Catholics to present themselves as civilized subjects, loyal Christians, and resisters to slavery. Part 3 shifts the discussion to the family and professional lives of free blacks in nineteenth-century Cuba, with particular emphasis on how they claimed categories of inclusion.Less
This book expands the framework for charting the African Diaspora to Spanish America. Drawing upon a variety of texts from the Spanish American colonies, it explores the connections and disjunctures between colonial Latin America and the African Diaspora in the Spanish empires. It examines what Leo Garofalo calls the “shape of Diaspora,” tracing its early extension into Iberia in the fifteenth century and its reach beyond the Atlantic basin into the Pacific/Andean territories ever since. The book is organized into three sections. Part 1 discusses voluntary and forced migrations across the Atlantic, focusing on three distinct cases of identity construction that intersect with ongoing debates in African Diaspora scholarship regarding the models of continuity and creolization in the Americas. Part 2 considers how enslaved and free people used their rights as Catholics to present themselves as civilized subjects, loyal Christians, and resisters to slavery. Part 3 shifts the discussion to the family and professional lives of free blacks in nineteenth-century Cuba, with particular emphasis on how they claimed categories of inclusion.
Anissa Janine Wardi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037455
- eISBN:
- 9780813042343
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037455.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This book contributes to the fields of African American, ecocritical, and literary studies, as it offers a sustained treatise on watercourses in the African American expressive tradition. It builds ...
More
This book contributes to the fields of African American, ecocritical, and literary studies, as it offers a sustained treatise on watercourses in the African American expressive tradition. It builds on the scholarship on the trans-Atlantic voyage, specifically reading the Middle Passage as a trope in African diasporic writing, and expanding studies of the Atlantic by reading this seminal water crossing in relation to other bodies of water. The African American expressive tradition positions bodies of water as haunted by the bodies of those who lost their lives in their currents. Water, then, the course of travel, marks severed paths to home, family, land, and even life, yet this break in the waters inaugurated a transatlantic culture. In this way, water is not merely the site of disconnection, trauma, and loss, but a source of new life. Further, while ecocritical theory is gaining increasing importance, to date there has been very little analysis of the environmental dimension of African American writing. The inclusion of African American literature in this field—and specifically reading water as a site of memory and history—meaningfully expands the ecocritical canon. Beyond proposing a new theoretical map for conceptualizing the African Diaspora and considering the ways in which collective memory is grafted onto waterways, this study offers a series of close readings of major African American literary, filmic, and blues texts.Less
This book contributes to the fields of African American, ecocritical, and literary studies, as it offers a sustained treatise on watercourses in the African American expressive tradition. It builds on the scholarship on the trans-Atlantic voyage, specifically reading the Middle Passage as a trope in African diasporic writing, and expanding studies of the Atlantic by reading this seminal water crossing in relation to other bodies of water. The African American expressive tradition positions bodies of water as haunted by the bodies of those who lost their lives in their currents. Water, then, the course of travel, marks severed paths to home, family, land, and even life, yet this break in the waters inaugurated a transatlantic culture. In this way, water is not merely the site of disconnection, trauma, and loss, but a source of new life. Further, while ecocritical theory is gaining increasing importance, to date there has been very little analysis of the environmental dimension of African American writing. The inclusion of African American literature in this field—and specifically reading water as a site of memory and history—meaningfully expands the ecocritical canon. Beyond proposing a new theoretical map for conceptualizing the African Diaspora and considering the ways in which collective memory is grafted onto waterways, this study offers a series of close readings of major African American literary, filmic, and blues texts.
Tunde Adeleke
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604732931
- eISBN:
- 9781604732948
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604732931.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Postcolonial discourses on African Diaspora history and relations have traditionally focused intensely on highlighting the common experiences and links between black Africans and African Americans. ...
More
Postcolonial discourses on African Diaspora history and relations have traditionally focused intensely on highlighting the common experiences and links between black Africans and African Americans. This is especially true of Afrocentric scholars and supporters who use Africa to construct and validate a monolithic, racial, and culturally essentialist worldview. Publications by Afrocentric scholars such as Molefi Asante, Marimba Ani, Maulana Karenga, and the late John Henrik Clarke have emphasized the centrality of Africa to the construction of Afrocentric essentialism. In the last fifteen years, however, countervailing critical scholarship has challenged essentialist interpretations of Diaspora history. Critics such as Stephen Howe, Yaacov Shavit, and Clarence Walker have questioned and refuted the intellectual and cultural underpinnings of Afrocentric essentialist ideology. This book deconstructs Afrocentric essentialism by illuminating and interrogating the problematic situation of Africa as the foundation of a racialized worldwide African Diaspora. It attempts to fill an intellectual gap by analyzing the contradictions in representations of Afrocentrism in Africa. These include multiple, conflicting, and ambivalent portraits of Africa; the use of the continent as a global, unifying identity for all blacks; the de-emphasizing and nullification of New World acculturation; and the ahistoristic construction of a monolithic African Diaspora worldwide.Less
Postcolonial discourses on African Diaspora history and relations have traditionally focused intensely on highlighting the common experiences and links between black Africans and African Americans. This is especially true of Afrocentric scholars and supporters who use Africa to construct and validate a monolithic, racial, and culturally essentialist worldview. Publications by Afrocentric scholars such as Molefi Asante, Marimba Ani, Maulana Karenga, and the late John Henrik Clarke have emphasized the centrality of Africa to the construction of Afrocentric essentialism. In the last fifteen years, however, countervailing critical scholarship has challenged essentialist interpretations of Diaspora history. Critics such as Stephen Howe, Yaacov Shavit, and Clarence Walker have questioned and refuted the intellectual and cultural underpinnings of Afrocentric essentialist ideology. This book deconstructs Afrocentric essentialism by illuminating and interrogating the problematic situation of Africa as the foundation of a racialized worldwide African Diaspora. It attempts to fill an intellectual gap by analyzing the contradictions in representations of Afrocentrism in Africa. These include multiple, conflicting, and ambivalent portraits of Africa; the use of the continent as a global, unifying identity for all blacks; the de-emphasizing and nullification of New World acculturation; and the ahistoristic construction of a monolithic African Diaspora worldwide.
Kendahl Radcliffe, Jennifer Scott, and Anja Werner
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628461558
- eISBN:
- 9781626740839
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628461558.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The authors argue, that a focus on Black intellectualism dissolves binary oppositions—as Paul Gilroy, W.E.B. DuBois, and others have attempted to do in their explorations of “double consciousness” ...
More
The authors argue, that a focus on Black intellectualism dissolves binary oppositions—as Paul Gilroy, W.E.B. DuBois, and others have attempted to do in their explorations of “double consciousness” and other (intellectual) ways in which people of African descent have proactively negotiated their heritage, past, and present in the face of external conditions of hardship and change. Studies on Black Intellectualism create a space for understanding self-determined, conscious actions and creative choices, without ignoring historical and systemic obstacles of inequality, discrimination, violence, enslavement, misfortune or other circumstances that may victimize. New literature focusing on the intellectualism of the Black Atlantic and beyond can now go further to make more connections across time and space and to show how these inventive connections and collaborations are an inherent part of the process of facing uncertainty, movement and change By moving beyond traditional and formerly limiting geographical, historical, and conceptual categories of the “Black Atlantic,” we expand and liberate this discourse to make possible the study of how movement to “anywhere but here” helped individuals to arrive at where they needed to be spiritually, socially, politically, and culturally.Less
The authors argue, that a focus on Black intellectualism dissolves binary oppositions—as Paul Gilroy, W.E.B. DuBois, and others have attempted to do in their explorations of “double consciousness” and other (intellectual) ways in which people of African descent have proactively negotiated their heritage, past, and present in the face of external conditions of hardship and change. Studies on Black Intellectualism create a space for understanding self-determined, conscious actions and creative choices, without ignoring historical and systemic obstacles of inequality, discrimination, violence, enslavement, misfortune or other circumstances that may victimize. New literature focusing on the intellectualism of the Black Atlantic and beyond can now go further to make more connections across time and space and to show how these inventive connections and collaborations are an inherent part of the process of facing uncertainty, movement and change By moving beyond traditional and formerly limiting geographical, historical, and conceptual categories of the “Black Atlantic,” we expand and liberate this discourse to make possible the study of how movement to “anywhere but here” helped individuals to arrive at where they needed to be spiritually, socially, politically, and culturally.
Deidre Helen Crumbley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813039848
- eISBN:
- 9780813043791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813039848.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the book, addressing its focus, methodological approaches, and interpretive frameworks. This chapter introduces the case study church, delineates the book format, ...
More
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the book, addressing its focus, methodological approaches, and interpretive frameworks. This chapter introduces the case study church, delineates the book format, and describes the focus of each chapter. In the “call and response” tradition of African American churches, methodology is discussed as “response” to a “call” for ethnography of African American religious life, which transcends stereotypes, goes beyond the study of established Black Independent churches, and incorporates the voices of minoritized people into intellectual discourse that directly reflects and affects their lives. By addressing germane literature, this chapter also positions the study within interpretive frameworks related to: notions of exile; the African Diaspora; African-derived slave religion; the Sanctified Church; the interplay of gender and religion and power in institutionalization; and, the “myth of neutrality” in the ethnographic process.Less
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the book, addressing its focus, methodological approaches, and interpretive frameworks. This chapter introduces the case study church, delineates the book format, and describes the focus of each chapter. In the “call and response” tradition of African American churches, methodology is discussed as “response” to a “call” for ethnography of African American religious life, which transcends stereotypes, goes beyond the study of established Black Independent churches, and incorporates the voices of minoritized people into intellectual discourse that directly reflects and affects their lives. By addressing germane literature, this chapter also positions the study within interpretive frameworks related to: notions of exile; the African Diaspora; African-derived slave religion; the Sanctified Church; the interplay of gender and religion and power in institutionalization; and, the “myth of neutrality” in the ethnographic process.
Tunde Adeleke
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604732931
- eISBN:
- 9781604732948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604732931.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Blacks in America have used Africa to construct an essentialist ideological worldview on the basis of their historical experiences. This has led to the construction and affirmation of a ...
More
Blacks in America have used Africa to construct an essentialist ideological worldview on the basis of their historical experiences. This has led to the construction and affirmation of a countervailing monolithic protest identity that, unfortunately, is one-dimensional and ahistorical and is more reflective of the alienation of black Americans than a true representation of the historical process. The notion that black Americans remain essentially African despite centuries of separation from Africa is historically flawed. In constructing black American relations with Africa within a monolithic, one-dimensional framework that underscores underlying mutuality and shared values, Afrocentric essentialism refuses to confront the complexities and paradoxes of the history and relations of Africans, black Americans, and African Diaspora. The identity debate and crisis among African Americans remain unresolved, in part because African Americans themselves have not passionately and consistently embraced the African identity.Less
Blacks in America have used Africa to construct an essentialist ideological worldview on the basis of their historical experiences. This has led to the construction and affirmation of a countervailing monolithic protest identity that, unfortunately, is one-dimensional and ahistorical and is more reflective of the alienation of black Americans than a true representation of the historical process. The notion that black Americans remain essentially African despite centuries of separation from Africa is historically flawed. In constructing black American relations with Africa within a monolithic, one-dimensional framework that underscores underlying mutuality and shared values, Afrocentric essentialism refuses to confront the complexities and paradoxes of the history and relations of Africans, black Americans, and African Diaspora. The identity debate and crisis among African Americans remain unresolved, in part because African Americans themselves have not passionately and consistently embraced the African identity.
Janson C. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195332025
- eISBN:
- 9780199868179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195332025.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Describes the regional landscape prior to World War II. Outlines the factors that would launch the decolonization process and shape U.S. relations with the islands: the West Indian expatriate ...
More
Describes the regional landscape prior to World War II. Outlines the factors that would launch the decolonization process and shape U.S. relations with the islands: the West Indian expatriate community in New York; the explosion of labor riots in the Caribbean, especially in Trinidad in 1937 and Jamaica in 1938, and the growth of West Indian nationalist sentiment that followed; the consequent reorientation of British policy, toward welfare and development and eventually federation and independence; the outbreak of World War II in Europe; the West Indian expatriate community forging ties with African Americans to take advantage of British weakness; and the U.S. reaction to the changed situation, leading to the 1940 Anglo-American Bases-for-Destroyers Deal and the construction of U.S. bases in the islands the following year.Less
Describes the regional landscape prior to World War II. Outlines the factors that would launch the decolonization process and shape U.S. relations with the islands: the West Indian expatriate community in New York; the explosion of labor riots in the Caribbean, especially in Trinidad in 1937 and Jamaica in 1938, and the growth of West Indian nationalist sentiment that followed; the consequent reorientation of British policy, toward welfare and development and eventually federation and independence; the outbreak of World War II in Europe; the West Indian expatriate community forging ties with African Americans to take advantage of British weakness; and the U.S. reaction to the changed situation, leading to the 1940 Anglo-American Bases-for-Destroyers Deal and the construction of U.S. bases in the islands the following year.
Deidre Helen Crumbley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813039848
- eISBN:
- 9780813043791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813039848.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter examines beliefs and practices of The Church faith community and, after immersing the reader in a worship experience, explores four elements of “getting saved”: law, holiness, scripture, ...
More
This chapter examines beliefs and practices of The Church faith community and, after immersing the reader in a worship experience, explores four elements of “getting saved”: law, holiness, scripture, and spirit. Law is explored in terms of compliance with selected Levitical laws, especially Sabbath-keeping. Holiness is discussed in terms of boundaries between The Church and The World, and this section also reflects on the author's childhood experience of being “saved” in 1950s Cold War America. Scripture is explored as both vehicle of revelation and focus of communal intellectual life; being “filled with the Holy Ghost” as an outcome of “pressing through.” The ritual and symbolic content of The Church is then situated within contexts of African Diaspora religion, with special attention to Diane Stewart's examination of Afrophobia.Less
This chapter examines beliefs and practices of The Church faith community and, after immersing the reader in a worship experience, explores four elements of “getting saved”: law, holiness, scripture, and spirit. Law is explored in terms of compliance with selected Levitical laws, especially Sabbath-keeping. Holiness is discussed in terms of boundaries between The Church and The World, and this section also reflects on the author's childhood experience of being “saved” in 1950s Cold War America. Scripture is explored as both vehicle of revelation and focus of communal intellectual life; being “filled with the Holy Ghost” as an outcome of “pressing through.” The ritual and symbolic content of The Church is then situated within contexts of African Diaspora religion, with special attention to Diane Stewart's examination of Afrophobia.
Anissa Janine Wardi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037455
- eISBN:
- 9780813042343
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037455.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter establishes that water—fluid, shifting, and indeterminate—is the material center of this book, and is employed as a framework for theorizing survival and trauma, diasporic and regional ...
More
This chapter establishes that water—fluid, shifting, and indeterminate—is the material center of this book, and is employed as a framework for theorizing survival and trauma, diasporic and regional connections, and physical and psychological dislocations. Beginning with the transatlantic trade voyage, in which Africans were taken from their homelands and placed in the holds of slaving vessels—and during which, estimates suggest, one-third of the captives died—this project reveals that the confluence of death, loss, migration, and water is endemic to African American culture. August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean and Langston Hughes' “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” illustrate the indelible relationship between bodies of water and human bodies. Water is ancestrally embodied in these works, and encounters with it therefore often function as both confrontations with traumatic memory and rites of healing. Thus, ancestral communion is achieved by confronting the realm of the dead through water immersion. Further, waterways, carriers of memory, are interrelated and often morphing into one another, suggesting that the Middle Passage is an assumed presence in bodies of water.Less
This chapter establishes that water—fluid, shifting, and indeterminate—is the material center of this book, and is employed as a framework for theorizing survival and trauma, diasporic and regional connections, and physical and psychological dislocations. Beginning with the transatlantic trade voyage, in which Africans were taken from their homelands and placed in the holds of slaving vessels—and during which, estimates suggest, one-third of the captives died—this project reveals that the confluence of death, loss, migration, and water is endemic to African American culture. August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean and Langston Hughes' “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” illustrate the indelible relationship between bodies of water and human bodies. Water is ancestrally embodied in these works, and encounters with it therefore often function as both confrontations with traumatic memory and rites of healing. Thus, ancestral communion is achieved by confronting the realm of the dead through water immersion. Further, waterways, carriers of memory, are interrelated and often morphing into one another, suggesting that the Middle Passage is an assumed presence in bodies of water.
Frank “Trey” Proctor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036637
- eISBN:
- 9780252093715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036637.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This chapter examines the intersections of race, ethnicity, and slavery in Spanish America and the African Diaspora by focusing on the development of African Diasporic ethnicity in Mexico City to ...
More
This chapter examines the intersections of race, ethnicity, and slavery in Spanish America and the African Diaspora by focusing on the development of African Diasporic ethnicity in Mexico City to 1650. Drawing on marriage records from early seventeenth-century Mexico City, it considers how Africans constructed multiple new ethnic and community identities in Spanish America. Through an analysis of selection patterns of testigos (wedding witnesses) alongside marriage choice, the chapter highlights the networks of social relations formed by slaves. It shows that ethnic Africans tended to marry and form communities of association with Africans from the same general catchment areas. It argues that the foundations of the ethnic communities under formation were not intact African ethnicities, pan-African identities, or race-based identities. Rather, slave marriages in Mexico City point to the creation of African diasporic ethnicities that were spontaneously articulated in the Diaspora. Africans formed new ethnic identities based upon Old World backgrounds and commonalities while in Diaspora.Less
This chapter examines the intersections of race, ethnicity, and slavery in Spanish America and the African Diaspora by focusing on the development of African Diasporic ethnicity in Mexico City to 1650. Drawing on marriage records from early seventeenth-century Mexico City, it considers how Africans constructed multiple new ethnic and community identities in Spanish America. Through an analysis of selection patterns of testigos (wedding witnesses) alongside marriage choice, the chapter highlights the networks of social relations formed by slaves. It shows that ethnic Africans tended to marry and form communities of association with Africans from the same general catchment areas. It argues that the foundations of the ethnic communities under formation were not intact African ethnicities, pan-African identities, or race-based identities. Rather, slave marriages in Mexico City point to the creation of African diasporic ethnicities that were spontaneously articulated in the Diaspora. Africans formed new ethnic identities based upon Old World backgrounds and commonalities while in Diaspora.
Rachel Sarah O’Toole
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036637
- eISBN:
- 9780252093715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036637.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This chapter examines the development of African diasporic identities in colonial Peru by focusing on the case of Ana de la Calle. In 1719, Ana de la Calle paid a notary in the northern Peruvian city ...
More
This chapter examines the development of African diasporic identities in colonial Peru by focusing on the case of Ana de la Calle. In 1719, Ana de la Calle paid a notary in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo to compose her will. She identified herself as a free morena of casta lucumí from the Yoruba-speaking interior of the Bight of Benin. Before deconstructing the terms “lucumí” and “morena” as used together by Ana de la Calle, this chapter first provides an overview of slavery and freedom in colonial Peru. It then considers lucumí as an elite status, as well as how Ana de la Calle's claim to be free and Lucumí made her unique and perhaps isolated her from other free women of color in colonial Trujillo. By analyzing why Ana de la Calle used morena and lucumí together, this chapter shows how casta terms were harnessed by both enslaved and free people of the African Diaspora.Less
This chapter examines the development of African diasporic identities in colonial Peru by focusing on the case of Ana de la Calle. In 1719, Ana de la Calle paid a notary in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo to compose her will. She identified herself as a free morena of casta lucumí from the Yoruba-speaking interior of the Bight of Benin. Before deconstructing the terms “lucumí” and “morena” as used together by Ana de la Calle, this chapter first provides an overview of slavery and freedom in colonial Peru. It then considers lucumí as an elite status, as well as how Ana de la Calle's claim to be free and Lucumí made her unique and perhaps isolated her from other free women of color in colonial Trujillo. By analyzing why Ana de la Calle used morena and lucumí together, this chapter shows how casta terms were harnessed by both enslaved and free people of the African Diaspora.
Jason C. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195332025
- eISBN:
- 9780199868179
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195332025.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book is an international history of the relations between the United States, Britain, and the West Indies during the long decolonization of the latter. It draws on archives in seven countries to ...
More
This book is an international history of the relations between the United States, Britain, and the West Indies during the long decolonization of the latter. It draws on archives in seven countries to recover the story of that process, which resulted in the first new nations in the hemisphere—Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago—since the turn of the century. The process had begun amid depression, riot, and World War II, and it concluded at the moment of highest tension in the Cold War Caribbean. Moreover, the islands were a historical fount of black radicalism, which coursed intermittently through the hemisphere as the civil rights movement made the issue of American race relations particularly acute. In addition, the structure built to bring the islands to independence—the West Indies Federation—unexpectedly collapsed at perhaps the worst possible moment. Yet despite these ominous circumstances, the West Indian transition to independence was ultimately among the smoothest seen anywhere in the “Third World.” It avoided the bloodshed that accompanied the end of empire in many areas, and avoided the U.S. military intervention so historically promiscuous around the Caribbean littoral. This book argues that a unique “protean partnership” between the U.S. and the West Indies, one which complemented the Anglo-American relationship, explains the smooth transition. That partnership encompassed the U.S. pursuit of national-security assets such as military bases and strategic materials, the give-and-take of formal Anglo-American diplomacy, and the informal “diaspora diplomacy” of transnational race-activism that nurtured West Indian nationalism and the African American freedom struggle alike. This study contributes to the literatures on inter-American relations, race and foreign affairs, the Cold War, and decolonization.Less
This book is an international history of the relations between the United States, Britain, and the West Indies during the long decolonization of the latter. It draws on archives in seven countries to recover the story of that process, which resulted in the first new nations in the hemisphere—Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago—since the turn of the century. The process had begun amid depression, riot, and World War II, and it concluded at the moment of highest tension in the Cold War Caribbean. Moreover, the islands were a historical fount of black radicalism, which coursed intermittently through the hemisphere as the civil rights movement made the issue of American race relations particularly acute. In addition, the structure built to bring the islands to independence—the West Indies Federation—unexpectedly collapsed at perhaps the worst possible moment. Yet despite these ominous circumstances, the West Indian transition to independence was ultimately among the smoothest seen anywhere in the “Third World.” It avoided the bloodshed that accompanied the end of empire in many areas, and avoided the U.S. military intervention so historically promiscuous around the Caribbean littoral. This book argues that a unique “protean partnership” between the U.S. and the West Indies, one which complemented the Anglo-American relationship, explains the smooth transition. That partnership encompassed the U.S. pursuit of national-security assets such as military bases and strategic materials, the give-and-take of formal Anglo-American diplomacy, and the informal “diaspora diplomacy” of transnational race-activism that nurtured West Indian nationalism and the African American freedom struggle alike. This study contributes to the literatures on inter-American relations, race and foreign affairs, the Cold War, and decolonization.
George Worlasi Kwasi Dor
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617039140
- eISBN:
- 9781621039952
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
More than twenty universities and twenty other colleges in North America (USA and Canada) offer performance courses on West African ethnic dance drumming. Since its inception in 1964 at both UCLA and ...
More
More than twenty universities and twenty other colleges in North America (USA and Canada) offer performance courses on West African ethnic dance drumming. Since its inception in 1964 at both UCLA and Columbia, West African drumming and dance has gradually developed into a vibrant campus subculture in North America. The dances most practiced in the American academy come from the ethnic groups Ewe, Akan, Ga, Dagbamba, Mande, and Wolof, thereby privileging dances mostly from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. This strong presence of a world music ensemble in the diaspora has captured and engaged the interest of scholars, musicians, dancers, and audiences. In the first-ever ethnographic study of West African drumming and dance in North American universities the author documents and acknowledges ethnomusicologists, ensemble directors, students, administrators, and academic institutions for their key roles in the histories of their respective ensembles. Dor collates and shares perspectives including debates on pedagogical approaches that may be instructive as models for both current and future ensemble directors and reveals the multiple impacts that participation in an ensemble or class offers students. He also examines the interplay among historically situated structures and systems, discourse, and practice, and explores the multiple meanings that individuals and various groups of people construct from this campus activity. The study will be of value to students, directors, and scholars as an ethnographic study and as a text for teaching relevant courses in African music, African studies, ethnomusicology/world music, African diaspora studies, and other related disciplines.Less
More than twenty universities and twenty other colleges in North America (USA and Canada) offer performance courses on West African ethnic dance drumming. Since its inception in 1964 at both UCLA and Columbia, West African drumming and dance has gradually developed into a vibrant campus subculture in North America. The dances most practiced in the American academy come from the ethnic groups Ewe, Akan, Ga, Dagbamba, Mande, and Wolof, thereby privileging dances mostly from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. This strong presence of a world music ensemble in the diaspora has captured and engaged the interest of scholars, musicians, dancers, and audiences. In the first-ever ethnographic study of West African drumming and dance in North American universities the author documents and acknowledges ethnomusicologists, ensemble directors, students, administrators, and academic institutions for their key roles in the histories of their respective ensembles. Dor collates and shares perspectives including debates on pedagogical approaches that may be instructive as models for both current and future ensemble directors and reveals the multiple impacts that participation in an ensemble or class offers students. He also examines the interplay among historically situated structures and systems, discourse, and practice, and explores the multiple meanings that individuals and various groups of people construct from this campus activity. The study will be of value to students, directors, and scholars as an ethnographic study and as a text for teaching relevant courses in African music, African studies, ethnomusicology/world music, African diaspora studies, and other related disciplines.
Deidre Helen Crumbley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813039848
- eISBN:
- 9780813043791
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813039848.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
On one level, Saved and Sanctified tells a very particular story: this is the story of a church started above a horse stable in Great Migration Philadelphia, which, led by a charismatic woman born ...
More
On one level, Saved and Sanctified tells a very particular story: this is the story of a church started above a horse stable in Great Migration Philadelphia, which, led by a charismatic woman born just sixteen years after the Emancipation Proclamation, not only survived the death of the founder, but also institutionalized power-sharing by female and male elders. On another level, this book tells a more universal story: this is the human story of institution-building, establishing community, and pursuing a life of faith while negotiating rapidly changing and often adversarial social realities. Crumbley first situates “The Church,” as members, “saints,” refer to it, within the socio-historical landscape of the Great Migration, when, over six decades, six million African Americans left the Jim Crow South. She does this not only by drawing on germane historical research, but also by documenting the oral histories of founding members, both North and South of the Mason Dixon Line. Crumbley also explores the ritual and symbolic content of The Church, as a Sanctified Church within Black Church traditions and as an expression of African Diaspora religion. She analyzes its institutionalization as an experiment in employing both gender and age as organizing principles. Crumbley brings a unique perspective to this historically embedded ethnography in that she looks at The Church through the telescopic lens of the trained anthropologist and through the microscopic lens of one raised within this faith community.Less
On one level, Saved and Sanctified tells a very particular story: this is the story of a church started above a horse stable in Great Migration Philadelphia, which, led by a charismatic woman born just sixteen years after the Emancipation Proclamation, not only survived the death of the founder, but also institutionalized power-sharing by female and male elders. On another level, this book tells a more universal story: this is the human story of institution-building, establishing community, and pursuing a life of faith while negotiating rapidly changing and often adversarial social realities. Crumbley first situates “The Church,” as members, “saints,” refer to it, within the socio-historical landscape of the Great Migration, when, over six decades, six million African Americans left the Jim Crow South. She does this not only by drawing on germane historical research, but also by documenting the oral histories of founding members, both North and South of the Mason Dixon Line. Crumbley also explores the ritual and symbolic content of The Church, as a Sanctified Church within Black Church traditions and as an expression of African Diaspora religion. She analyzes its institutionalization as an experiment in employing both gender and age as organizing principles. Crumbley brings a unique perspective to this historically embedded ethnography in that she looks at The Church through the telescopic lens of the trained anthropologist and through the microscopic lens of one raised within this faith community.
Tunde Adeleke
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604732931
- eISBN:
- 9781604732948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604732931.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The term “Afrocentric essentialism” refers to the use of Africa to advance a monolithic construction of continental Africans and all blacks in Diaspora as one people with identical historical and ...
More
The term “Afrocentric essentialism” refers to the use of Africa to advance a monolithic construction of continental Africans and all blacks in Diaspora as one people with identical historical and cultural experiences, regardless of geographical location. Afrocentrism embodies race and nurtures racialist consciousness. This book examines the cultural, social, historical, and identitarian implications and ramifications of Afrocentric essentialism as well as the intellectual and political representations, challenges, and limitations of Afrocentric essentialist consciousness among African Americans. It discusses the many complex dimensions of essentialist ethos in relation to identity, historical memory, conceptions, and perceptions of Africa, along with the problematic situation of Africa as the foundation of a racialized African Diaspora. Moreover, it analyzes the responses of blacks to the challenges and implications of the expanding terrain of human encounters and experiences.Less
The term “Afrocentric essentialism” refers to the use of Africa to advance a monolithic construction of continental Africans and all blacks in Diaspora as one people with identical historical and cultural experiences, regardless of geographical location. Afrocentrism embodies race and nurtures racialist consciousness. This book examines the cultural, social, historical, and identitarian implications and ramifications of Afrocentric essentialism as well as the intellectual and political representations, challenges, and limitations of Afrocentric essentialist consciousness among African Americans. It discusses the many complex dimensions of essentialist ethos in relation to identity, historical memory, conceptions, and perceptions of Africa, along with the problematic situation of Africa as the foundation of a racialized African Diaspora. Moreover, it analyzes the responses of blacks to the challenges and implications of the expanding terrain of human encounters and experiences.
Leo J. Garofalo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036637
- eISBN:
- 9780252093715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036637.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This chapter examines how a diverse group of free and enslaved Africans and Afro-Iberians moved back and forth from the Iberian peninsula to the Americas. After discussing the significance of African ...
More
This chapter examines how a diverse group of free and enslaved Africans and Afro-Iberians moved back and forth from the Iberian peninsula to the Americas. After discussing the significance of African presence in Iberia, it turns to Afro-Iberian pasajeros a Indias (passenger to the Indies) and their journey between Seville and various parts of the Americas with the help of merchant, ecclesiastical, and other elite patrons. It also considers sailors and soldiers of the Spanish Main who made their way to the Americas and back in regular fashion. By tracing Afro-Iberian roots in the Andes and elsewhere in colonial Spanish America, the chapter reveals some important characteristics of the African Diaspora in the Iberian Atlantic World. It argues that the African Diaspora made a significant impact on the sixteenth-century Spanish Atlantic world, courtesy of Afro-Iberians who were conquistadors, passengers, and laborers in the conquest and colonization campaigns. This means that not all blacks arriving in the early colonial Americas originated in West Africa and the Atlantic Islands.Less
This chapter examines how a diverse group of free and enslaved Africans and Afro-Iberians moved back and forth from the Iberian peninsula to the Americas. After discussing the significance of African presence in Iberia, it turns to Afro-Iberian pasajeros a Indias (passenger to the Indies) and their journey between Seville and various parts of the Americas with the help of merchant, ecclesiastical, and other elite patrons. It also considers sailors and soldiers of the Spanish Main who made their way to the Americas and back in regular fashion. By tracing Afro-Iberian roots in the Andes and elsewhere in colonial Spanish America, the chapter reveals some important characteristics of the African Diaspora in the Iberian Atlantic World. It argues that the African Diaspora made a significant impact on the sixteenth-century Spanish Atlantic world, courtesy of Afro-Iberians who were conquistadors, passengers, and laborers in the conquest and colonization campaigns. This means that not all blacks arriving in the early colonial Americas originated in West Africa and the Atlantic Islands.
