African diaspora resulted due to the mass scattering of people from Africa between the 1500s and 1800s during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It entailed the involuntary migration of millions of Africans to Europe, the Caribbean, and America. The nations most populated by the African diaspora are Colombia, Brazil, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. They reflect the historical African experiences, struggles, and victories over time. African diasporic population is also vital in studying migration processes, cultural contexts, and subjective aspects of African-decedent’s life situations. The residents use rituals, spirit venerations, storytelling, and resistance mechanisms to memorize slavery experiences. The paper, therefore, discusses the sources relevant to the introduction to the African Diaspora course.
Gomez, Michael. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2019
Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora elaborates on the fundamental cultural, social, political, and economic issues, which shaped the African diaspora’s experience. The author of the book is Michael Gomez, and he updates the document to encompass recent findings on the African diaspora. He is a professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University. Gomez focuses on the working classes and increases the manuscript’s temporal boundaries to include the twenty-first-century developments. The intended audience is African-descent people in the Persian Gulf, Europe, North Africa, and Latin America. The document is also relevant for political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists studying African culture.
The book addresses important issues, such as the impact of global trade, slavery, religion, and resistance to modernity challenges. Gomez intends to reveal African descents’ historical experiences, victories, struggles, and mass movements over time. He shows black people’s achievements in theater, sculpture, painting, athletics, dance, and music. Examples of black musical production are blues, jazz, hip-hop, calypso, and reggae. The manuscript focuses on how African political, cultural, and social forms transform and influence Europeans, Asians, and First Nationers. The author uses a diasporic lens to connect spatially separated and culturally distinct people of African ancestry.
Onyebadi, Uche, ed. Multidisciplinary Issues Surrounding African Diasporas. Hersey: IGI Global, 2019.
African diaspora populations have dual personas as transient members of new nations and affiliates of the ancestral land. Multidisciplinary Issues Surrounding African Diasporas examines epistemological and philosophical aspects of Black people in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America. The author is Uche Onyebadi who is an associate professor at the Texas Christian University. He has a doctoral degree in journalism, and his research interests are international communication, media ethics, and politics. The intended audiences are anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and cultural researchers. The book covers xenophobia, cultural engagements, and higher education among people of color.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade led to the involuntary transportation of Africans to America and Europe. Natural disasters, famine, political upheavals, war, and the search for economic or professional prosperity are the leading causes of diaspora settlements. Onyebadi organized the book into twelve chapters to highlight and discuss African diaspora experiences. The author aimed at addressing migration processes, cultural contexts, and the subjective and objective features of the African descendants’ life situation. Moreover, African professionals migrate to the US, Australia, and Europe to search for financial rewards and fulfillment. They struggle to adapt to new cultures, languages, and norms.
Montgomery, Eric, ed. Shackled Sentiments: Slaves, Spirits, and Memories in the African Diaspora. Maryland City: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
The consequences of the Trans-Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Trans-Saharan, and inland African slave trade are immense. They still affect people of color in the US, Latin America, Australia, and Asia. Shackled Sentiments discusses slavery memories and embodiments from case studies in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. Eric Montgomery is the author of the manuscript, and he is a cultural anthropologist at Wayne State University. The contributors to the book focus on the way African descendants internalized slavery memories. The document uses multiple strategies to assess slavery and memory. They are ritual practices, spirit venerations, resistance mechanisms, national pride, healing instruments, and sacred language. The intended audience of the book is anthropologists, historians, linguistics, artists, and religious scholars.
The historical and pre-historical African slaveries were different from those of the New World through the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Slaves transferred to Europe, Asia, and America lost their family, identity, dignity, and homeland. The book is essential because it assesses how Africans internalize slavery using mimesis, rituals, storytelling, and performance. Montgomery discusses Kerala’s case in Southern India, where the residents use Kappiri Muthappans spirit to reverse African slaves’ souls to Kochin wall. They made a shrine to recall places where Portuguese abandoned sick slaves to die. Rituals, material culture, shrines, and language are modes African uses to transmit captivity and bondage memories.
African diaspora consists of individuals of African ancestry living in nations outside the continent. The struggles against historical racial colonization, domination, and capitalism define the link of the people of color to Africa. Gomez portrays black people’s achievements in auditoriums, carving, painting, athletics, ballets, and songs. Onyebadi reveals African descents’ historical understandings, conquests, struggles, and mass migrations over time. Montgomery evaluates the way Africans internalize slavery through mimesis, ceremonies, storytelling, and presentation. The diasporic communities are emotionally connected to their ancestral lands, recognize their dispersal, and feel alienated in residence nations.
Reference List
Gomez, Michael. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Montgomery, Eric, ed. Shackled Sentiments: Slaves, Spirits, and Memories in the African Diaspora. Maryland City: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Onyebadi, Uche, ed. Multidisciplinary Issues Surrounding African Diasporas. Hersey: IGI Global, 2019.