Theorizing African Diaspora(s) Anew

Theorizing African Diaspora(s) Anew

Organizer
JProf. Dr. Gigi Adair (Bielefeld) (Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung, Universität Bielefeld)
Host
Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung, Universität Bielefeld
Venue
Video Conference
ZIP
33615
Location
Bielefeld
Country
Germany
From - Until
11.03.2021 - 13.03.2021
By
Manuela Lenzen

'Theorizing African Diaspora(s) Anew' – this interdisciplinary symposium will bring together established and emerging literary and cultural studies scholars, social scientists and historians to discuss how theories of African diaspora should be updated.

Theorizing African Diaspora(s) Anew

'Theorizing African Diaspora(s) Anew' – this interdisciplinary symposium will bring together established and emerging literary and cultural studies scholars, social scientists and historians to discuss how theories of African diaspora should be updated. The currently established and influential theorizations are based mostly on the Atlantic diaspora which resulted from the enslavement of Africans and their transport to the Americas. A reconceptualization is needed today both to account for new African diasporic formations formed by more recent and multi-directional waves of migration (e.g. from Africa to Europe, the Americas and Asia, within Africa, and from the diaspora back to Africa) and new understandings of diaspora emerging from recent research, such as a focus on gender and sexuality, "diaspora without displacement", or diasporic subjectivity. Diaspora research is a highly interdisciplinary topic: it has always combined insights from empirical migration research, history, anthropology, literary, cultural and music studies and more. In order to theorize African diaspora(s) anew, in view of the enormous changes in African ethnic populations and cultural formations around the world, it is necessary to bring social scientists, historians and humanities scholars together to share their insights and discuss how the multifaceted phenomenon of diasporic Africa and Africans is to be understood today.

Programm

Video Conference
11.03.2021

19:30-21:15
Welcome and Introduction (15 min)
New technologies, new diasporas (90 min)
Peter Simatei (Moi University)
“Networked Diasporas: New African Diasporas and the Politics of home”
Clayton Peel (Namibia University of Science and Technology),
“New technology, violence and memory: Holding the state security apparatus accountable in Zimbabwe

12.03.2021

14:00-16:15
Diasporic politics today (2 hours 15 min)
Yusuf Sheik Omar (SOAS),
“The Role of the Horn of Africa diaspora in peace and violent conflict in their countries of origin”
Sam Coombes (University of Edinburgh),
“Francophone and anglophone Black Atlantics and Black Lives Mattering today”
Matti Steinitz (University of Bielefeld),
“Hemispheric Black Transnationalism and the Struggle against Racism in the Americas: Networks of solidarity and dialogues between Afro-diasporic communities in the US, the Caribbean, and Latin America”

17:00-19:15
New visions and visual archives of African diasporas (2 hours 15 min)
Dagmawi Woubset (University of Pennsylvania),
“The Films of Abderrahmane Sissako and the Right to African Interiority”
Yogita Goyal (UCLA),
“Speculative Fictions and Sanctuary Worlds”
Muyiwa Falaiye (University of Lagos),
“Image of the African Diaspora: From the Hut Near the Congo to the Banks of the Mississippi”

20:00-21:30
Rethinking diaspora from the South (90 min)
Deborah Nyangulu (University of Münster),
“Rethinking Knowledge in Crossborder Terms: A View from the Global South”
Finex Ndhlovu (University of New England),
“Transnational Sociality: (Re)theorising African Diasporas from the Margins

13.03.2021

14:00-15:30
New forms of diasporic return (90 min)
Judith A. Byfield (Cornell University),
“Remaking the Triangle: West Indian wives in Nigeria”
Celina de Sá (University of Pittsburgh),
“Diaspora without Displacement: Race and Belonging in Postcolonial West Africa”

16:15-17:45
African diasporas in Africa: literary perspectives (90 min)
Christopher Ouma (University of Cape Town),
“Contemporary African small magazines and the new diaspora”
Chigbo A. Anyaduba (University of Winnipeg),
“‘The Strange Familiar’: Writing African Migrants in Africa”

18:30-20:00
New diasporic sounds (90 mins)
Sonjah Stanley Niaah (University of the West Indies),
“Sound, Diaspora, and the Politics of Citizenship”
Stefanie Alisch (Humboldt University Berlin),
“Quinta do Mocho, South Africa: Kuduro, tarraxinha and afrohouse, mapping Africa onto Lisbon’s musical topography”

20:00-21:30
Roundtable discussion and conclusion

Contact (announcement)

marina.hoffmann@uni-bielefeld.de

https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/ZiF/AG/2021/03-12-Adair.html
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