African Diaspora Essay examples -- African Diaspora Cultures

In simple terms, the Diaspora as a concept, describes groups of people who currently live or reside outside the original homelands. We will approach the Diaspora from the lenses of migration; that the migration of people through out of the African continent has different points of origin, different patterns and results in different identity formations. Yet, all of these patterns of dispersion and germination/ assimilation represent formations of the Diaspora. My paper will focus on the complexities of the question of whether or not Africans in the Diaspora should return to Africa. This will be focused through the lenses of the different phases in the Diaspora. The historical Diaspora confirms pre-colonial global dispersion and resettlement of Africans. These communities of relocated Africans identified and maintained a connection with Africa, while still maintaining a "Loyalty to their adopted country" and making valid and positive contributions. This brings us to a new question, what exactly then are the identities of the African Diaspora and how was that identity forged under (in and after) slavery? Avatar Brah best illuminates the journey of identity formulation through the literature of the African Diaspora she wrote: "Diasporic identities are at once local and global. They are networks of the transnational identifications encompassing imagined and encountered communities (Brah, 1994)." An individual can activate any number of choices on the path to their identity, thus the context and historical processes must be investigated. The Diaspora originated from historical and cultural experiences of the Jewish and Greek people, ... ...s as a group and to effective resistance to oppression. There's no need in returning to Africa. "Despite Cesaire's construction of pre-colonial Africa as an aggregation of warm, communal societies, he never calls for a return. His concept of Negritude is future-oriented and modern. His position in Discourse is unequivocal and sterile attempt to repeat the past, but to get beyond. It is not a dead society that we want to revive. We leave that to those who go in for exorcismà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦It is a new society rich with all the productive power of modern times, warm with all the fraternity of olden days."(Cesaire, 2000) James Aggrey said many years ago that there is a new Africa coming today and it is a challenge to civilization." Joseph Harris added that the new Africa today is the world of African people, of Africa and its Diaspora.