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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.

This chapter brings together the book's thesis on global processes of racialization with the author's two primary fields of engagement: African studies and African diaspora studies. First, it examines the institutional formation of African studies in Cold War United States. Second, it looks at the ways in which race and ethnicity have been considered within Africanist anthropology. Third, it considers how Africa has been marginalized within the late twentieth-century African diaspora and Black Atlantic cultural theory. The discussion begins with a brief exploration of the broad historical and political context that allowed for the development of the Africa-diaspora divide in current intellectual circles. The chapter concludes by making the for a theory of diaspora that offers a new way out of the ongoing ambivalent relationship between Africa, the diaspora, and race.

This introductory chapter briefly presents some new perspectives on Garveyism. Though commonly recognized as one of the most important phenomena in the history of the African diaspora, observers of the Garvey phenomenon often struggle to explain it. This chapter (and the book as a whole) attempt to fill in the gaps in Garvey scholarship by characterizing Garveyism as a method of organic mass politics, in which “process” was privileged over “stance”; and a sustained project of diasporic identity building, where “race” according to Marcus Mosiah Garvey was a fixed signifier, connecting peoples of African descent to a single, ancient history, and guiding them to a common destiny. To conclude, the chapter discusses the structure and approach this volume will undertake in studying Garvey.

This chapter centers on Harlem in the early 1960s to demonstrate how young Black Nationalists helped make soul style cool for everyday black women. Focusing on the African Jazz Art Society (AJAS) and the African Nationalist Pioneer Movement (ANPM), the chapter offers a window into how these groups, made up of African American men and women and the children of Caribbean immigrant parents, were envisioning “Africa” as both a homeland and a model of black beauty and pride. At the time, AJAS and the ANPM described their style of adornment as African, meaning they were making efforts to link the styles they were wearing to specific ethnic groups and countries in Africa. AJAS used its ties to Abbey Lincoln and others who were part of the soul-jazz music scene to export images of their modeling troupe, the Grandassa models, throughout the diaspora. As the models appeared on album covers and magazines published in London, the Caribbean and Nigeria their look became known as soul style.

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.

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.

Events that produce meaning, in particular when they have not been ‘resolved’, never stop ‘surviving’; in the case of the African diaspora, the past of slavery still makes sense today, as if the slaveships were still crossing the Atlantic each day, over and over again. Collective memory, through the collective and individual identifications it sets up, produces identity. The question of common origin and history becomes acutely important in situations of displacement. The construction of the diaspora and the emergence of a sense of collective belonging are increasingly based on the transmission of memory. Within the last two decades, two positions have appeared as central within the conceptualisation of diaspora: the first emphasises the relationship of the diaspora to the homeland (the centred model), while the second emphasises the transverse relationships that exist within the diaspora outside of the homeland (the multi-centred model). The past of slavery is one of the most prominent themes in reggae music.

This chapter contextualizes African American roots tourism in Brazil both time-wise and space-wise. First, it locates the brief history of African American roots tourism within the longer trajectory of the meanings of Brazil for African Americans, spanning from the late nineteenth century—when, inspired by fantastical imaginings of Brazil as a “racial paradise,” groups of African Americans attempted to migrate there—to the present-day, when the country has become an important roots tourism destination. Second, the chapter compares representations of Brazil with those of other countries frequently visited by African American roots tourists, placing them within a wider system of meanings that the author defines as the “map of Africanness,” a map that is both spatial and temporal.

This chapter recounts the arrival of the Cold War in Anglo-American-Caribbean affairs, relating how the emerging superpower conflict tempered American anticolonialism and relegated areas outside Europe to the foreign-policy shadows. But this eclipsing of the West Indies and the dampening of reform efforts there were not the only effects of the Cold War. The conflict also invigorated the American pursuit of strategic materials in the region, such as bauxite and oil, and made anticommunism a priority in Anglo-American diplomacy regarding the West Indies. Also of note was the first formal progress toward federation. With the assent of Washington, London, West Indian nationalists, and black-consciousness visionaries alike, plans for regional union began to take shape.

The continuing immigration of practicing Muslims into the United States and the increasing occurrences of conversion poses several challenges to the typical historical accounts of religious experience in the country. For the African Americans, looking into such concerns means addressing religious pluralism issues that were frequently associated with the spiritual monopoly of the Black Church and the legacy of slavery among specific minority groups. Fundamentally, aside from the concept of hijra and issues of religious history, Islam initiates an attempt to reconstrue history through illustrating how African Americans have been able to find themselves through umma that disregards socioeconomic status while also accounting for diversities evident across various cultures. These social and religious changes promote unpredictable effects, both positive and negative, on the Muslim umma and on the African diaspora.

The opening chapter of the book outlines a brief history of black fashion. Using Angela Davis as a guiding figure, the chapter discusses how and why soul style became a global phenomenon. Locating the style’s roots in the antebellum period, tracing its development in the interwar period, and showing its critical evolution in the years following WWII, the chapter makes a case for why clothing has always been tied to struggles for black freedom. The chapter centers this American history in a broader context of the African diaspora in the mid-twentieth century. It uses these intertwining movements as the cultural and political foundation from which soul style emerges as a global phenomenon. The chapter also offers important definitions of terms such as “style,” “fashion,” and “soul.”

This chapter examines how African activists apply the notion of African diaspora within their European minority community. The studies of African diaspora are vital in order to strengthen the African diasporic subjectivity. This subjectivity is then used to impose the significance of the African identity to the marginalization of their communities in Europe. In addition, this African diasporic subjectivity is initially attributable to men only; however, theorists argue that the question in race does not cover questions in gender and sexuality; from there evolved diasporic intersubjectivity. Diasporic intersubjectivity became evident when African feminist poets Gwendolyn Rodgers and Audre Lorde pioneered the liberation movements of 1970 through poetry. This chapter explores the transnational community of Europe segregating the population of the African minority, through the use of intersubjective models of diaspora identity.

This chapter examines how roots tourism has allowed for the construction of black racial solidarity between African Americans and Afro-Brazilians. Aware of their power as U.S. citizens, African Americans have actively “made use” of their identity, as both tourists and Americans, to support Afro-Brazilians. In addition to donating cash and goods and providing financial aid to Afro-Brazilian organizations, they have often requested black tourist guides and prioritized patronizing black-owned businesses so that their U.S. dollars are channeled to Afro-Brazilians. Afro-Brazilian actors, in general, have responded very positively to such practices of solidarity, even if they are also critical of, and ready to challenge, what they view as the tourists’ “Americanness.” Most importantly, Afro-Brazilian activists have also set the terms of engagement in these interactions and, rather than being mere beneficiaries, they have become important agents in these projects of transnational black solidarity, acting as co-producers in the processes of diaspora-making.

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.

This book chronicles the experiences of first and second generation West African immigrants and refugees in the United States during the last four decades. Drawing on field work and oral histories of West African immigrants aggregated in various locations from West Africa to the West Indies to destinations like metropolitan Atlanta, the book examines how significant segments of black America are forging new meanings and interpretive frameworks for understanding the paradigm of the Atlantic World. More specifically, it explores the transfiguration in the diversity and complexity of the role of the new West African diaspora in the recent history of the black Atlantic. It considers the intricate patterns of adaptation and incorporation among the immigrants and their children, along with the impact of the recent postcolonial and voluntary immigration of West Africans on the changing meanings of “African Americanness.” It also tackles issues of cultural identity formation and socioeconomic incorporation among immigrants and refugees from West Africa, and whether these migrants will become the newest African Americans.