The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities

The African Diaspora contributes to the debate between those who believe that the African origin of blacks in Western society is central to their identity and outlook and those who deny that proposition.

Contributors include Niyi Afolabi, Adetayo Alabi, Celia M. Azevedo, Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Eliana Guerreiro Ramos Bennett, LeGrace Benson, Ira Kincade Blake, Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Sharon Aneta Bryant, Michael J. C. Echeruo, Peter P. Ekeh, Patience Elabor-Idemudia, David Evans, Robert Elliot Fox, Andrea Frohne, Joseph E. Inikori, Joyce Ann Joyce, Joseph McLaren, Charles Martin, Ali A. Mazrui, Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure, Nkiru Nzegwu, Isidore Okpewho, Oyekan Owomoyela, Laura J. Pires-Hester, Richard Price, Sally Price, Jean Rahier, Sandra L. Richards, Elliott P. Skinner, Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., Keith Q. Warner, Maureen Warner-Lewis, and Kimberly Welch.

"The editorial goal of this collection, gathered from papers of a 1996 conference, is to deepen understanding of how transplanted African populations (and their descendants) interacted with the physical, cultural, and intellectual environment of the New World. This goal mandates an assessment of the survival of African origins--an ongoing debate between the Essentialist school (a strong and continuous African presence) and those advocating a more syncretic viewpoint (an African presence more mutable and interactive with the new environment). The papers present both views and draw their evidence from a variety of disciplines: art, music, literature, linguistics, history, and sociology. The thematic grouping of the papers (e.g., Race, Gender, and Image), coupled with an introduction that succeeds in the difficult task of connecting most of the presentations, makes intelligible the variety of approaches and views. Undergraduate instructors in African American history and sociology can assign selected papers to illustrate methodology and stimulate discussion. History students, for example, will profit from Joseph E. Inikori's comments on the dangers inherent in applying the word slavery to the subject peoples of Africa. Upper-division undergraduates and above." --R. T. Ingoglia, Felician College , Choice, February 2000 Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Indiana University Press

Isidore Okpewho was Chair of Afro-American and African Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and convener of the conference (in 1996) that gave rise to this book.

Carole Boyce Davies is Director of African-New World Studies and Professor of English at Florida International University.

Ali A. Mazrui is Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and author of more than twenty books.

Acknowledgments

Introduction, Isidore Okpewho

Part 1. The Diaspora: Orientations and Determinations

1. Michael J. C. Echeruo, An African Diaspora: The Ontological Project

2. Maureen Warner-Lewis, Cultural Reconfigurations in the African Caribbean

3. Elliott P. Skinner, The Restoration of African Identity for a New Millenium

Part 2. Addressing the Constraints

4. Joseph E. Inikori, Slaves or Serfs?: A Comparative Study of Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and Africa

5. Richard Price, Modernity, Memory, Martinique

6. Peter P. Ekeh, Kinship and State in African and African American Histories

7. Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Wages of Migration: Jobs and Homeownership Among Black and White Workers in Muncie, Indiana, 1920

8. Ira Kincaid Blake, The Significance of Cognitive-Linguistic Orientation for Academic Well- Being in African American Children

9. Sharon Aneta Bryant, The Relationship of Place of Birth and Health Status

Part 3. Race, Gender, and Image

10. Celia M. Azevedo, Images of Africa and the Haiti Revolution in American and Brazilian Abolitionism

11. Kimberly Welch, Our Hunger is Our Song: The Politics of Race in Cuba, 1900-1920

12. Antonio Benítez-Rojo, The Role of Music in the Emergence of Afro-Cuban Culture

13. Sally Price, The Centrality of Margins: Art, Gender, and African American Creativity

14. Eliana Guerreiro Ramos Bennett, Gabriela Cravo e Canela: Jorge Amado and the Myth of the Sexual Mulatta in Brazilian Culture

15. Patience Elabor-Idemudia, Gender and the New African Diaspora: African Immigrant Women in the Canadian Labor Force

16. Sandra L. Richards, Horned Ancestral Masks, Shakespearean Actor Boys, and Scotch-Inspired Set Girls: Social Relations in Nineteenth-Century Jamaican Jonkonnu

Part 4. Creativity, Spirituality, and Identity

17. Oyekan Owomoyela, From Folklore to Literature: The Route from Roots in the African World

18. Jean Rahier, Blackness as a Process of Creolization: The Afro-Esmeraldian Décimas (Ecuador)

19. Niyi Afolabi, The (T)error of Invisibility: Ellison and Cruz e Souza

20. Adetayo Alabi, Recover, Not Discover: Africa in Walcott's Dream on Monkey Mountain and Philip's Looking for Livingstone

21. Ali A. Mazrui, Islam and the African Diaspora: The Impact of Islamigration

22. Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure, From Legba to Papa Labas: New World Metaphysical Self/Refashioning in Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo

23. Robert Elliott Fox, Diasporacentricism and Black Aural Texts

24. David Evans, The Reinterpretation of African Musical Instruments in the United States

25. Nkiru Nzegwu, The Concept of Modernity in Contemporary African Art

26. LeGrace Benson, Habits of Attention: Persistence of Lan Ginée in Haiti

27. Andrea Frohne, Representing Jean-Michel Basquiat

28. Charles Martin, Optic Black: Implied Texts and the Colors of Photography

29. Keith Q. Warner, Caribbean Cinema, or Cinema in the Caribbean?

Part 5. Reconnecting with Africa

30. Laura J. Pires-Hester, The Emergence of Bilateral Diaspora Ethnicity among Cape Verdean-Americans

31. Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., Black Americans and the Creation of America's Africa Policies: The De-Racialization of Pan-African Politics

32. Joseph McLaren, Alice Walker and the Legacy of African American Discourse on Africa

33. Joyce Ann Joyce, African-Centered Womanism: Connecting Africa to the Diaspora

Contributors

Index