Dr. Jean Muteba RahierAfrican and African Diaspora Studies

Department of Global and Sociocultural StudiesFlorida International University

OVERVIEW Contemporary theorizings of African

diasporas examine the coming togetherof various black people in global spaces.

They also challenge the prescriptions ofSafran, Cohen and others, andinterrogate the notions of a fixed point oforigin, unidirectional movement, and asingle historical moment of forceddispersal.

THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

For example, the African diaspora is oftendescribed as the result of the forced removalof black people from Western Africa during thecenturies of the transatlantic slave trade.

This conception only serves to homogenizeAfro-descendants around the world by framingtheir global presence in terms of a specifichistorical event (the slave trade), that began inone place (Africa), and moved in one direction(out from Africa), for one purpose (slavery).

AFRICAN DIASPORAS

This conception elides a whole set ofrealities for black people who movedaround the globe, from multiple places,at different times over the course ofhistory, and for a variety of reasons.

In addition, this conception of Africandiasporas ignores contemporaryAfricans and Afro-descendants whomigrate to other countries.

PAUL GILROY

The work of Paul Gilroy represents animportant shift in African diasporatheorizing because he de-centersAfrica as a fixed point of origin, andhe disputes the unilineal trajectory ofblack people from the continent.

However, Gilroy still privileges thetransatlantic slave trade as a definingmoment.

NODES AND NETWORKS

Gilroy claims that there are nodes ofcontact, exchange, and interaction, whichreveal a more complex understanding ofdiasporic relationships and activities in an“ex-centric communicative circuitry”(1993:210-211).

His work highlights the constant movementof black people and the complex networksin which they exchange ideas, goods andcultural capital.

GILROY’S BLACK ATLANTIC

Gilroy (1993) discusses the “BlackAtlantic” as a site of constant, multi-directional criss-crossing betweenAfrica, Europe, North America and theCaribbean.

Gilroy envisions the Black Atlantic as atransnational community.

GILROY’S BLACK ATLANTIC(continued) Gilroy describes the Black Atlantic as a

“system of cultural exchanges”(1993:14) and he describes how blackactivists, artists and intellectuals wereagents of cultural history, a moving forceof political, cultural and ideologicalexchange whose history isunincorporated in English and Euro-centric identities (1993:5).

GILROY’S BLACK ATLANTIC(continued)

The Black Atlantic as a space of“counterculture to modernity” illustrateshow black people played an integral rolein the economic and culturaldevelopment of the West.

THE RHIZOME METAPHOR

For Gilroy, the African diaspora does notstem from the one-way extraction ofblack people out of Africa.

It is more like the rhizome, a multi-spatial, multi-temporal series ofnetworks in which black people arelinked together by “strange attractors”through the shared experiences ofvictimization, racism and oppression(1993:210).

STRANGE ATTRACTORS ANDSAFE SPACES

These “strange attractors” that bringblack people together help create “safespaces” of understanding andconnection through the sharedexperiences of racism, oppression andvictimization. (Gilroy 1993:210).

CRITIQUES OF GILROY

Although Gilroy decenters Africa as asingular point of origin, he still focuseson the transatlantic slave trade as adefining moment in the formation of theAfrican diaspora.

A NEW AFRICAN DIASPORA?

Kamari Clarke (2010) calls for a differentontology—one that de-centers theMiddle Passage and transatlanticslavery and highlights contemporaryissues of African states.

She proposes a “new African diaspora”(2010:59) that is less about slavery andmore about Africa’s economicdevelopment, humanitarian crises andpolitical turmoil.

She discusses “new diasporicconfigurations,” in which diasporiccommunities are positioned to align withpowerful institutions and mobilize theirresources for political activism anddevelopment in the homeland (Clarke2010:59).

However a new ontology—oneseparated from the slave tradeexperience—that delineates the “old”African diaspora from the “new” maystop short of recognizing “newpossibilities emerging out of new formsof recognition and consciousnessrevealed by and through Diaspora as anideology of Black mutual recognition.”(Rahier 2010:69)

Contemporary theorizings focus on how thevarious and diverse communities of theAfrican diaspora relate to each other, andhow they express solidarity and markdifferences (See Rahier 2010, Hintzen andRahier 2010).

Examining these meetings, interactions,negotiations, and confrontations helps usunderstand the limitless manifestations ofblackness that are constantly reformulatedin diasporic spaces.

CRITIQUES OF GILROY(continued) Some scholars criticize Gilroy for

presenting these spaces of encounterbetween black people as “safe” because itdismisses hierarchies of power betweenblack people.

Within the African diaspora there arehierarchies and tensions that inform ever-changing black subjectivities, socialformations, and identity performance(Thomas and Clarke 2006; Hintzen andRahier 2010; Brown 2005).

CRITIQUES OF GILROY(continued)

The notion of the Black Atlantic as atransnational community masks thediversity of experiential subjectivities thatare affected by global processes.

The processes inherent to globalizationreinforce racial and economic disparity,spurring processes of hierarchization that“solidify particular kinds of hierarchy withindiaspora.” (Thomas and Clarke 2006:32)

HIERARCHIES AND POWER

Diasporic communities are engaged instrategies that may “subvert thehegemony” of globalization, but arealways linked to global processes andthe “contexts of particular histories andhierarchies of power and knowledge”(Thomas and Clarke 2006:8).

While hierarchization does exist, there isalso a coming together of different forms ofblackness that informs, enriches, andexpands the possibilities of what blacknesscan be (See Hintzen and Rahier 2010).

Diasporas then must be considered notonly in terms of tensions and conflicts, butalso in terms of connections, influences,mergers and exchanges (See Hintzen andRahier 2010; Clarke 2010; Brown 2005).

Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail

The work of Jacqueline Nassy Brown(2005) in Liverpool, Englanddemonstrates this point very well.

Black people born in Liverpool wereaffected by the hierarchization andfriction that existed between them andthe African American GI’s that werestationed in Liverpool right after WorldWar II.

Dropping Anchor, SettingSail(continued) In a collision of diasporic spaces,

(intonating occasional conflict), BlackAmericans ingratiated Black Liverpoolracial production with the transmissionof diasporic resources.

Black Americans brought music,iconography and ideologies (Brown2005:42) that profoundly inspired Blackracial and political identity formation inLiverpool.

Dropping Anchor, SettingSail(continued) For Black Liverpudlian men the pervasive

American hegemony was a source ofcontention as Americans flaunted wealth anddated local women.

In spite of the antagonism though, BlackAmericans exuded a “masculinist inspiration”(Brown 2005:54), and in the face of Englishnationalist racism, American resistanceideology “may be credited with providing thevery means for Black identity to become sucha formidable political force in this particularBritish context” (Brown 2005:41).

CONCLUSIONS (1)

Contemporary theorists have walkedaway from understandings of Diasporathat focus on a fixed point of origin,forced dispersal, and unilinealmovement.

The work of Paul Gilroy has been pivotalin disrupting rigid definitions of theAfrican diaspora.

CONCLUSIONS (2)

By examining the coming together ofblack people in global spaces we seethat different forms of blackness deeplyinfluence black subjectivities and identityformations.

CONCLUSIONS (3)

Ethnographic data combined withtheoretical inquiries illustrate thecomplexities of movement, networks,relations and exchanges thatcharacterize Diasporas (See list ofrecommended readings).

CONCLUSIONS (4)

We now have a more nuancedunderstanding of Diasporas and can seebeyond Safran and Cohen’sprescriptions and categories . Bystudying Diasporas we can betterunderstand the processes ofglobalization and transnationalism thatinvolve contact and exchange betweenpeople.