Title: The Black diaspora of the Americas : experiences and theories out of the Caribbean /
Authors: Chivallon, Christine; Tidjani Alou, Antoinette
Publisher: Ian Randle Publishers,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Ethnizität.; Diaspora.; African diaspora; Black people America Social conditions.; Black people Caribbean Area Social conditions.; Black people Migrations.; Slavery America History; Schwarze.; Amerika.; America Ethnic relations.; America Emigration and immigration
Abstract: The forced migration of Africans to the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade created primary centres of settlement in the Caribbean, Brazil and the United States--the cornerstones of the New World and the black Americas. However, unlike Brazil and the US, the Caribbean did not (and still does not) have the uniformity of a national framework. Instead, the region presents differing situations and social experiences born of the varying colonial systems from which they were developed. Using the Caribbean experience as the focus, Christine Chivallon examines the transatlantic slave trade and slavery as founding events in the identification of a Black diaspora experience. The exploration is extended to include the United States to exemplify contrasting situations in slavery-based systems and identifies the links between the expressions of culture emanating from the black populations of the New World and the diversity of interpretations of the cultural identities of the Black Americas. Divided into three main parts, The Black Diaspora of the Americas firstly examines the foundation of the Black experiences of the New World by considering the slave trade. The second part takes a more theoretical examination of 'Black diaspora' using Rastafarianism, Garveyism and Pan-Africanism while referencing the work of a range of thinkers including Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Richard Price, Edouard Glissant, Melville Herskovits and Sidney Mintz. The work is concluded in the third part with the proposition of an A-centred community of persons of African descent--a culture devoid of centrality. The Black Diaspora of the Americas brings together the key arguments about creolisation and the concept of a Black diaspora and presents an outstanding contribution to understanding the dynamics of diaspora.
Contents: PART 1: The Slave Trade, Slavery and Contemporary Migrations: Experiencing the Diaspora -- 1. The Slave Trade as a Founding Event -- 2. Dispersion to an Impossible Elsewhere: Slavery and Its Legacy -- 3. The Second Stratum of the Diaspora: Contemporary Migrations and Reactualisation of Old Relationships -- PART 2: Can One Diaspora Hide Another? -- 4. Three Theories on the Black Cultural Universe of the Americas -- 5. A Variable Research Object? The Example of the Family Institution Viewed Through Three Theses on the African-American World -- 6. Three Concepts of the Diaspora Corresponding to Three Theses on the African-American Cultural Universe -- PART 3: The Black Diaspora: Articulating Experiences and Theories -- 7. The Resource of the Ancestral Land: Pan-Africanism and Black Nationalism as Projects of a Durable Unity -- 8. Community Plurality or the A-Centred Community -- 9. Rastafari: An Allegorical Figure of the A-Centred Community -- Conclusion: Out of the Caribbean: For a Reformulated Model of the Diaspora.