Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
European imperialism in African
European imperialism in African
European imperialism in African
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: European imperialism in African
African diaspora studies is a academic field of study which combines social sciences, history, academic scholarship, and general intellectual history. The focus of this field is the problems and experiences faced by both African Americans and continental Africans who migrated from their homeland to new territory where opportunity tends to be limited. Many subjects are combined into the field; such as history, art, music, literature, geography, economics, and anthropology.
Based on the article African Diasporas:Toward a Global History by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, he leaves an impression that the trans-Indian ocean diaspora is ignored by global African diaspora studies. The African slave experience for those who migrated to Asia was difference than
…show more content…
However, interactions between Africa and Asia took place long before European imperialism of the 16th and 17th centuries. The African diaspora is based on a globalized notion of blackness, the African diaspora as community and identity. It is used to describe the movement of people who were forcibly removed from the African continent. Diaporas come about due to the process of migration from a homeland to a new land that challenges their ways of life. Diasporas can appear and disappear as people assimilate to new conditons. With African diaspora studies, there is a focus on the challenges faced for newly migrated Africans, and there was less recorded challenges faced upon Africans who migrated to Asia versus Africans who migrated to the Americas. Zeleza makes a argument that the focus on Afro-Atlantic diaspora in African studies is limiting the growth of the field. Zeleza states that the U.S. African American models of African diaspora studies "be provincialized rather than universalized". He essentially says that global African diaspora studies focusing on only the african experimence in one area of the world, creates historical inaccuracies. I agree with Zelea in his claim of the African experience being ignored in various global areas beside those involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In my opinion, focusing on the Atlantic model of African diaspora limits societies view of
Marcus Garvey had a huge influence on the African Diaspora and where it connected with the black men and women. Ethiopia, in Garvey’s perspective, was seen as the home of all African’s in exile in the African Diaspora. (McMurray 48) See now what Garvey was influencing, yet not the initiator of, was on how the African Diaspora connected with the idea or dream of returning home to Africa. With that movement already going on and established, he was able to feed off other ideas and goals and incorporate them into his own. Garvey began to wonder who was the voice for the African’s and why the black men and women didn’t have the opportunities that other people, not African, did.
In Brent Hayes Edwards essay, “ The Use of Diaspora”, the term “African Diaspora” is critically explored for its intellectual history of the word. Edward’s reason for investigating the “intellectual history of the term” rather than a general history is because the term “is taken up at a particular conjecture in black scholarly discourse to do a particular kind of epistemological work” (Edwards 9). At the beginning of his essay Edwards mentions the problem with the term, in terms of how it is loosely it is being used which he brings confusion to many scholars. As an intellectual Edwards understands “the confusing multiplicity” the term has been associated with by the works of other intellectuals who either used the coined or used the term African diaspora. As an articulate scholar, Edwards hopes to “excavate a historicized and politicized sense of diaspora” through his own work in which he focuses “on a black cultural politics in the interwar, particularly in the transnational circuits of exchange between the Harlem Renaissance and pre-Negritude Fran cophone activity in the France and West Africa”(8). Throughout his essay Edwards logically attacks the problem giving an informative insight of the works that other scholars have contributed to the term Edwards traces back to the intellectual history of the African diaspora in an eloquent manner.
That leaves us with the myth, broken and jaded. While it is not wrong to say that Africans are Black and to be African is Black, there is no indication the continent has become void of all culture. The damage of the myth lies in the very lexicon, that Black is used in a derogatory sense. That to be Black means that individuality and diversity are lost. But the history of Africa will show us otherwise. Cultures mixing, influxes of ideas and migrations of vastly different cultures flowing with zealous religious practices and harmonious linguistic structures, that is to say the ‘real’ Africa. Myths like these are dangers because they become promulgated throughout worldview, clouding the reality, and forever holding back the truest form of the subject. To that end, Africa will never be the same.
In conclusion, the African-American identity, while bonded to a portion of lost ties to Africa, is not bonded to mainstream American ideals of wealth, prosperity, or Western culture.
Historically, there is no doubt that the blacks were miserable and were slaves. And the Asian people were used for the cheap labor to build American structure, like road and bridge. Being in a low social status, they were hampered by segregation and inferior education. In sea...
Next is John Henrik Clark, who refers to African America Studies as Africana Studies because he believes that Black tells you how you look, not who you are. He goes on to state that he calls African American Studies “a dilemma at the crossroads of history” (Clark 32). This is because European people knew history well enough to distort it and use it, as well as political weapons such as the gun and bible, to control the world. This is the reason why a look at African culture will show what Africana Studies are about or should be about. Africana Studies should embrace the Africans all around the world, in places like Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean Islands even those in Asia and the Pacific Islands. Clarke states that Africa is
The Kenyan feminist and environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, explores the legacy of colonialism and oppression in her native country through her moving 2006 memoir, Unbowed. Maathai explains that over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Africa experienced a massive influx of white settlers. In an effort to solidify control over recently acquired colonies, many European powers had encouraged large numbers of their ethnically white citizens to make a new home on the African continent. As a result, thousands of native Africans were displaced. Maathai’s ancestors, the Kikuyu and Maasai peoples were among them. The majority of these forced dislocations took place in the highland regions. The rich soil and temperate climate of this area had proven attractive to native African peoples for centuries; and it seemed the new British settlers found it equally tempting. After most of the land’s original occupants were transported to the Rift Valley region of western Kenya, settlers began taking advantage of the highlands’ vast natural resources. The land was essentially ravaged as ancient forests were clear-cut in order to make room for agricultural plots. The introduction of the plantation system, with its non-native plant species, large-scale hunting, and systematic recruitment of Africans as field laborers, signaled the next phase in the oppression of native Africans (Maathai 6-9).
As the author points out, “joining the faculty at Howard in 1912, he eventually moved from teaching English to teaching philosophy, but was prevented from teaching a subject of increasing importance to him- race, and especially the interaction of races affected by what is called the African diaspora” (Rampersad xi-xii). His limited opportunity of expressing and committing what he is interested in give him limited understanding of the movement of the Africans creating the social change.
In accordance to African American writer Margaret Walker’s quote that talks about African Americans still having their African past intact despite slavery and racism, immigration indeed affected cultural ways. The interconnection of the trans-Atlantic world brought about the rise of new cultures, music and expressions that were to be held by future generations, which is now the population of African American people. This paper will research on the middle passage and the early American slavery and how African tried to resist.
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). African American history plays an important role in American history not only because the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one Month out of the year to studied African American history. Of course we learn some things about the important people and events in African American history, but some of the most important things remain untold which will take more than a month to learn about.
The strength of Pan-Africanism, at its height, came from its numbers — the support from the black community was extremely high. What drew this overwhelming support was the message of self-worth and a chance of self-identity throughout the African diaspora. Dubois and Garvey both held and promoted the belief that, as an alienated citizen in Ameri...
Gabriel, Deborah. Layers of Blackness: Colourism in the African Diaspora. London: Imani Media, 2007. Print.
This class was filled with riveting topics that all had positive and negative impacts on Africa. As in most of the world, slavery, or involuntary human servitude, was practiced across Africa from prehistoric times to the modern era (Wright, 2000). The transatlantic slave trade was beneficial for the Elite Africans that sold the slaves to the Western Europeans because their economy predominantly depended on it. However, this trade left a mark on Africans that no one will ever be able to erase. For many Africans, just remembering that their ancestors were once slaves to another human, is something humiliating and shameful.
Africa’s struggle to maintain their sovereignty amidst the encroaching Europeans is as much a psychological battle as it is an economic and political one. The spillover effects the system of racial superiority had on the African continent fractured ...
Music played a very important role in the lives of people is diaspora communities. It served as a reminder for the immigrants of their homeland, which allowed them to proudly express their national and cultural identities. Diaspora refers to an international network of communities linked together by the identification of a common ancestral homeland and culture. People in these communities are no longer living in their homelands, with no guarantee of a return either. (Bakan, 19). Music played a large role in African diaspora communities. This was first started by the slave trades many years ago when slave traders traveled to the coast of West Africa to capture Africans and brought them back to the United States to be slaves on plantations. Slaves were more prone to loose a sense of their own culture because every new aspect of their lives was forced upon them, therefore they were undoubtedly forced to abandon their n...