Through different disciplinary perspectives, the authors shed light on the rich and complex Africa-Black Diaspora world; revealing historical transformation and transmutations that continue to define and reshape what is undoubtedly a landscape of dizzying expansion, transformations, and complexities, if not contradictions.

Africa and its Historical and Contemporary Diasporas edited by Tunde Adeleke and Arno Sonderegger is an interdisciplinary study of the changing and complex nature of the Africa-Black Diaspora relationship. The contributors highlight the problems and challenges of this relationship and provide strategies for developing a more functional and mutually beneficial engagement in a radically changing global environment. This book presents new methodological approaches and research to study the many dimensions and complexities of Africa and its Diasporas. Collectively, this book addresses three vital themes. First, it foregrounds new and emerging forces reshaping the Africa-Black Diaspora nexus. Second, it highlights new and interdisciplinary approaches to “Diaspora” and “Pan-Africanism” (culture, religion, ideology, literature, philosophy, and epistemology). Third, it examines factors infusing the transformation in, and challenges of, African Diaspora and Pan-Africanist collaborations, and possible strategies of strengthening the relationship.

Preface

Introduction by Tunde Adeleke & Arno Sonderegger

Part I: Reflections on Diaspora and Africa through Time and Space

Chapter 1: Diaspora: Paradigmatic Shift and Implications for Pan-Africanism in the 21st Century by Tunde Adeleke

Chapter 2: Trends and Complexities of the Africa-Diasporan Nexus by Felix Kumah-Abiwu

Chapter 3: New Dimensions of Diaspora: Modernity, Heritage Tourism and the ‘Black Star of Africa’ by Alma Jean Billingslea Brown

Part II: Reflections on Spiritual Culture and Resistance in Art and Life

Chapter 4: An Assembly of 21 Spirit Nations: The Pan-Africanist Pantheon of Haitian Vodou’s African Lwa by Kyrah Malika Daniels

Chapter 5: ‘Nya-Binghi’: Rastafarian Pan-Africanism from Moscow to Ethiopia by Dominik Frühwirth

Chapter 6: ‘Jes Grew’ as A Metaphor for African American and Pan-African Resistance in Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo by Babacar M`Baye

Part III: Reflections on Pan-African Histories and Options

Chapter 7: Questioning Diaspora: George Padmore, Colonial Fascism and the Route to Marxist Pan-Africanism by Arno Sonderegger

Chapter 8: On Memory, Reckoning, and Speculative Futures: Pan-Africanism, Afropolitanism, and Afrofuturism by Saheed Yinka Adejumobi

About the Contributors