This book examines the intersection between cultural identities and development in African and the Diaspora from multidisciplinary perspectives. Starting with the premise that culture is one of the most significant factors in development, the book examines diverse topics such as the migrations of musical forms, social media, bilingualism and religion. Foregrounding the work of Africa based scholars, the book presents strategies for identifying solutions to the challenges facing African culture and development. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African Studies and African Culture and Society.

Africans living in the diaspora have a unique position as potential agents of change in helping to address Africa’s political and socioeconomic challenges. In addition to sending financial remittances, their multiple, hybrid identities in and out of geographical and psychocultural spaces allow them to play a role as cultural and political ambassadors to foster social change and sustainable development back in their African homelands. However, this hybrid position is not without challenges, and this book reflects some of the conundrums faced by members of the diaspora as they negotiate their relationships with their home countries. The author uses her lived experiences and empirical research to ask: are members of the diaspora conduits of Western cultural hegemony at the cost of their traditional preservation and meaningful development in Africa? How does the Western media’s portrayal of Africa as the "Dark Continent" in the 21st century influence their decision-making process to invest back home? How could African nations’ governments manage their relationships with citizens abroad to motivate them to invest in their home countries? How do some citizen-residents in Africa and African Diaspora communities perceive each other in the context of Africa’s development? How could the African Diaspora collaborate with citizen-residents across growth sectors to impact Africa’s development? The book hopes to inspire agents of change within the diaspora and features diverse African entrepreneurs’ success stories and their experiences of tackling these challenges. The book will be of interest to aspiring entrepreneurs, researchers across African studies, and the expanding and vibrant field of diaspora research.

The diaspora of developing countries can be a potent force for development, through remittances, but more importantly, through promotion of trade, investment, knowledge and technology transfers. The book aims to consolidate research and evidence on these issues with a view to formulating policies in both sending and receiving countries.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of illustrations -- Notes on contributors -- Preface -- Introduction: gendering knowledge in Africa and the African Diaspora -- PART I (Re- )writing gender in African and African Diaspora history -- 1 The Bantu Matrilineal Belt: reframing African women's history -- 2 REMAPping the African Diaspora: place, gender and negotiation in Arabian slavery -- 3 Communicating feminist ethics in the age of New Media in Africa -- PART II Gender, migration and identity -- 4 Transnational feminist solidarity, Black German women and the politics of belonging -- 5 Beyond disability: the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and female heroism in Manu Herbstein's Ama -- 6 Reverse migration of Africans in the Diaspora: foregrounding a woman's quest for her roots in Tess Akaeke Onwueme's Legacies -- PART III Gender, subjection and power -- 7 Queens in flight: Fela Kuti's Afrobeat Queens and the performance of "Black" feminist Diasporas -- 8 Women and tfu in Wimbum Community, Cameroon -- 9 Women's agency and peacebuilding in Nigeria's Jos crises -- 10 Contesting the notions of "thugs and welfare queens": combating Black derision and death -- 11 Culture of silence and gender development in Nigeria -- 12 Emasculation, social humiliation and psychological castration in Irene's More than Dancing -- Index

Africa and the African Diaspora is the outcome of a symposium held atPortland State University in Portland, Oregon (February 2002), entitled “Symposium on Freedom in Black History,” designed to celebrate Black History Month. The major themes of the conference were how Africans both at home on the continent and dispersed abroad, often by forces beyond their control, reacted to oppression and subjugation in seeking freedom from slavery, colonialism, and discrimination. The volume documents the many forms that oppression has taken, the many forms that resistance has taken, and the cultural developments that have allowed Africans to adapt to the new and changing economic, social and environmental conditions to win back their freedom. Oppressive strategies as divide-and-rule could be based on any one of a number of features, such as skin color, place of origin, culture, or social or economic status. People drawn into the vortex of the Atlantic trade and funneled into the sugar fields, the swampy rice lands or the cotton, coffee or tobacco plantations of the new world and elsewhere, had no alternative but to risk their lives for freedom. The plantation provided the context for the dehumanization of disadvantaged groups subjected to exhausting work, frequent punishment and personal injustice of every kind, This book demonstrates that the history and interpretation of these struggles of the oppressed peoples to free themselves have not received proportionate attention and analysis, as have other aspects of that history.

This book centers people of African descent as cultural leaders to challenge the myth that they do not know how or care about managing and preserving their culture. Arts Management, Cultural Policy, & the African Diaspora also presents comparative case studies of the challenges, differences, similarities, and successes in approaches to cultural leadership across multiple cultural contexts throughout the diaspora. This volume disrupts the enduring and systemic global marginalization, oppression, and subjugation that threatens and undermines people of African descent’s cultural contributions to humanity. The most important distinguishing feature of the volume is its geographical use of the African diaspora to explore the subjects of arts management and cultural policy which, to date, no volume has done before. Furthermore, the volume’s comparative examination of ten critical, historical, practical, and theoretical questions makes it a significant contribution to the literatures in Arts Management, Cultural Policy, Cultural, Africana, African American, and Ethnic studies.

The authoritative source for information on the people, places, and events of the African Diaspora, spanning five continents and five centuries. The field of African Diaspora studies is rapidly growing. Until now there was no single, authoritative source for information on this broad, complex discipline. Drawing on the work of over 300 scholars, this encyclopedia fills that void. Now the researcher, from high school level up, can go to a single reference for information on the historical, political, economic, and cultural relations between people of African descent and the rest of the world community. Five hundred years of relocation and dislocation, of assimilation and separation have produced a rich tapestry of history and culture into which are woven people, places, and events. This authoritative, accessible work picks out the strands of the tapestry, telling the story of diverse peoples, separated by time and distance, but retaining a commonality of origin and experience. Organized in A–Z sections covering global topics, country of origin, and destination country, the work is designed for easy use by all.

This volume attempts to insert itself within the larger discussion of Africa in the twenty-first century, especially within the realm of world politics. Despite the underwhelming amount of attention given to Africa's role in international politics in popular news sources, it is evident that Africa has a consistent record of participating in world politics- one that pre-dates colonization and continues today. In continuance of this legacy of active participation in global political exchanges, Africans today can be heard in dialogues that span the world and their roles are impossible to replace by other entities. It is evident that a vastly different Africa exists than ones that bolster images of starvation, corruption, and compliance. The essays in this volume center on Africa and Africans participating in international political discourses, but with an emphasis on various forms of expression and philosophies, as these factors heavily influence Africa's role as a participant in global politics. The reader will find a variety of essays that permeate surface discussions of politics and political activism by inserting African culture, rhetoric, philosophies into the larger discussion of international politics and Africa's role in worldwide political, social, and economic debates.

African Diaspora Identities provides insights into the complex transnational processes involved in shaping the migratory identities of African immigrants. It seeks to understand the durability of these African transnational migrant identities and their impact on inter-minority group relationships. John A. Arthur demonstrates that the identities African immigrants construct often transcends country-specific cultures and normative belief systems. He illuminates the fact that these transnational migrant identities are an amalgamation of multiple identities formed in varied social transnational settings. The United States has become a site for the cultural formations, manifestations, and contestations of the newer identities that these immigrants seek to depict in cross-cultural and global settings. Relying mostly on their strong human capital resources (education and family), Africans are devising creative, encompassing, and robust ways to position and reposition their new identities. In combining their African cultural forms and identities with new roles, norms, and beliefs that they imbibe in the United States and everywhere else they have settled, Africans are redefining what it means to be black in a race-, ethnicity-, and color-conscious American society.

Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora explores the ways in which religious ideas and beliefs continue to play a crucial role in the lives of people of African descent. The chapters in this volume use historical and contemporary examples to show how people of African descent develop and engage with spiritual rituals, organizations and practices to make sense of their lives, challenge injustices and creatively express their spiritual imaginings. This book poses and answers the following critical questions: To what extent are ideas of spirituality emanating from Africa and the diaspora still influenced by an African aesthetic? What impact has globalisation had on spiritual and cultural identities of peoples on African descendant peoples? And what is the utility of the practices and social organizations that house African spiritual expression in tackling social, political cultural and economic inequities? The essays in this volume reveal how spirituality weaves and intersects with issues of gender, class, sexuality and race across Africa and the diaspora. It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students interested in the study of African religions, race and religion, sociology of religion and anthropology.