Part 1: Question one is what is the African diaspora? (Who should be considered in the African diaspora? How is this like the black Atlantic and how is it different?). Students should use the Colin Palmer piece to answer this question. In its most recognizable form, the African diaspora refers to the many cultures and societies abroad that exist throughout the world as the result of the historic movement, mostly forced, of native Africans to other parts of the globe. Most specifically, the African diaspora is the blanket term used to represent a confluence of events that led to the forced displacement of millions of innocent people. The term first originated in the 1950s and initial studies focused on the “dispersal of people of …show more content…
No diasporic community manifests all of these characteristics or shares with the same intensity an identity with its scattered ancestral kin. In many respects, diasporas are not actual but imaginary and symbolic communities and political constructs; it is we who often call them into being.” (Palmer) It is essential to note that the term African Diaspora does not describe any single event, group of people or set of customs. It represents a current state of being for many citizens of the world and provides context for understanding the social structures and intercultural relationships of the world we live in today. Collin Palmer provides great insight into the context of diaspora. He writes that there have been several movements, massive migrations of people, throughout history. There is no single “diasporic movement or monolithic diasporic community” to be studied, but rather a confluence of people, events and ideologies that span thousands of years, across every continent. Each period of movement, each diasporic stream, happened for different reasons. Palmer’s approach to the African Diaspora begins with a look nearly 100,000 years into the past. He identifies five major streams, with the first African diaspora that occurred as a
Marcus Garvey, a ‘proponent of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements” (), once stated that “a people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” (Good Reads Quotes) He was in fact very much so right. Most people in this world care about where they come from, who they descended from and where the backbone of their identity lies. Have you ever wondered why almost most orphans tend to look for their family lines or go out in search of where they belong? It is with this very essence my quest to look for answers and investigate about two very distinct yet similar groups. The groups I examine throughout this paper are Africans and African-Americans. What I seek to find out is why two very ‘distinct’ yet similar groups of people fail to see eye to eye, judging from the fact that Africans and African-Americans look alike, originated from Africa and their histories and culture somehow intertwine with each other. The main question here really is: what are the factors that hinder the relationship between Africans and African-American people.
African American Studies is a very complex subject. To confuse African American studies with black history is a common occurrence. African American studies is much deeper and more profound than just Black history alone. There are many unanswered and unasked questions among the Black American culture which causes confusion and misunderstanding in modern day society. In unit one there were many themes, concepts, and significant issues in the discipline of Africana studies. Both W.E.B Du Bois and Vivian V. Gordan touched on many concerns.
Upon learning about the colonial history in its truest form, one can attest that resistance has been deeply rooted in the African diaspora. One of the earliest forms of resistance was the upstaging of revolts by the slaves on land and ships, which date back to the beginning of the slave trade during 17th century. Since then, African Americans have continued to resist their oppressors throughout the history. This persistent resistance has been inspired from the ideals of black nationalism. In the simplest terms, “black nationalism is the recognition of cultural and racial commonality and a call to racial solidarity” (Harris 2001:409). This ideology has united the African diaspora and paved the way to resistance. Thus, successfully shaping the
In simple terms, the Diaspora as a concept, describes groups of people who currently live or reside outside the original homelands. We will approach the Diaspora from the lenses of migration; that the migration of people through out of the African continent has different points of origin, different patterns and results in different identity formations. Yet, all of these patterns of dispersion and germination/ assimilation represent formations of the Diaspora. My paper will focus on the complexities of the question of whether or not Africans in the Diaspora should return to Africa. This will be focused through the lenses of the different phases in the Diaspora.
In this assignment, the strengths and weaknesses of the claim that migration creates global connections, will be discussed. This will be done by discovering what counts as migration and how it is valued, how global connections can be both positive and negative, about the concepts of 'diaspora' and 'translocalism' and how important they are when considering both migration and global connections. To enable the discussion of the subject matter, it must first be understood what is meant by the terms 'migration' and 'global connections', migration is used to describe the circulation of people from their country of origin into
Jews are the oldest diaspora who had no “homeland” for two millennia (Safran 2005). Despite attempts made by Christian evangelists to end the Jewish diaspora, they survived and developed a new relationship with the homeland. Historically, there has been historical meaning of diaspora for Jews- they were exiled because they were powerless, insecure and minority groups. The Jews diaspora who carried on its culture, maintained its ethnic or religious institution in America (hostland) are unwilling to surrender their identities and uphold a transpolitical relationship to the homeland or countries of origin (Safran 2005).
Who are we, where did we come from, what has been our experience since we landed on United States soil? The migration of Africans has been very significant in the making of African Americans history and culture. Today's 35 million African Americans are heirs to all the migrations that have formed and transformed African America, the United States, and the Western Hemisphere (The New York Public Library, n.d.). African American history starts in the 1500s with the first Africans coming from Mexico and the Caribbean to the Spanish territories of Florida, Texas, and other parts of the South (The New York Public Library, n.d.). Although
For instance, during slavery in America, lighter, mulatto slaves would be given preferential duties over darker slaves which birthed tensions between the light and dark skin people in the Black community that is abundant today. After the interview, she mentions how Ethiopia (and Liberia) were the only countries in Africa that were not colonized. The distinction between colonized African countries gives her a sense of nationalism for Ethiopia. During the the African diaspora, many different African ethnicities were grouped intentionally to limit communication, with an estimated 1500-2000 languages in Africa. Many languages and culture were lost due to isolation in America. Conducting the interview with Muhlet reminded me of the internal tension between blacks in America and emigrants from African countries. There is a huge disconnect in the community because african people view blacks synonymously with slavery and roles of servitude which has the potential to stratify the community. Muhlet’s family like many other families that have emigrated to America likely have tried to keep their culture by opening up predominantly small-scale family businesses in the ethnic hubs of large
The aspect of African-American Studies is key to the lives of African-Americans and those involved with the welfare of the race. African-American Studies is the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding (Karenga, 21). African-American Studies exposes students to the experiences of African-American people and others of African descent. It allows the promotion and sharing of the African-American culture. However, the concept of African-American Studies, like many other studies that focus on a specific group, gender, and/or creed, poses problems. Therefore, African-American Studies must overcome the obstacles in order to
Scholars have dedicated their time and attention to furthering the discipline of African American Studies and can define the field with many different definitions. Through looking at the origins and development in the study we can see how it became a legitimate academic field. As we study the writings of the African American intellect, it will fully explain the importance of the discipline. Their work will justify the study of cultural and historical experiences of Africans living in Africa or the African Diaspora. When examining the scholar’s arguments we can develop our own intellectually informed rationalization of the field of African American Studies.
The Pan Africanism movement covers the African diaspora subject across the globe, most recently in the Asian continent. The following communities discussed in this paper are from India and the Persian Gulf area.
Thus, the concept of Diaspora has different meanings to different people according to their different circumstances. For instance, when the Jews were exiled from the Babylon, they were uprooted from their own homes and they had to rebuild their community and culture all over again, for them the diaspora had different meaning since it was forced. But today the meaning of Diaspora could be limited to any community of a particular nation outside its own country, sharing some common bonds that eventually give the community a new identity within their existing identity,
Who are African Diasporas, do we refer to people who were forced to disperse to the Americans and Caribbean during the 1500s to 1800s, or we refer to native Africans moving abroad to settle down. Any of these group falls under the name African diasporas, the culture and values of the African people brought down from generation to generation might have been forgotten by the Africans been forcefully dispersed, but for the native Africans settling in parts of Europe and America, it a question of how to preserve one’s culture in a foreign land. . This diaspora, this African diaspora started in the 16th century, included an estimated 10.7 million forced migrants—about 2 million had died during the Middle Passage—from West, West-Central, and Southeastern
The underlying key theme that comes through in the three above elements involved in connecting diasporic groups, individuals and communities, and their ‘homelands’ is the communication of knowledge reproduction with in the transnational community. Communication is a key ingredient in the maintenance of identities practiced, performed and experienced because it enables those who go through these processes of identity maintenance to continue adding and building on their identities through the reproduction of knowledge from their ancestors, living relatives, social institutions and online interaction. The reproduction of knowledge is a structure within a society that allows information to be passed down from one generation to the next (reference), through
1. Criollos: This term is often referred to as creoles, and it relates to the people of pure European descent born in the Americas. They were often the ones who carried out independence movements in Latin America, as they were tired of being subdued by the European natives and thus wanted to be the elite class. They did not seek to improve the lives of non-white people, and used theories of racial purity to keep them under control.