Africa and the African Diaspora
Cultural Adaptation and Resistance
by
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Introduction
Attempts to affirm Africa’s vital, enduring cultural contributions to the New World have not been uncontroversial. Some of these related issues include the reconstruction of pre-Columbian Africa-New World contacts; the identification of African continuities in the Diaspora through artifact pattern analyses; demographic evidence, ethnicity, and racial types; bio-archaeological interpretations; technological transfer; spatial and settlement patterns studies; migrations and migration routes; Maroon heritage; women and gender issues. Among anthropologists, there is a lack of consensus and a diversity of approaches to the African Diaspora peaking in the 1970s in the Americas. This state stemmed from uncertainties and the unavoidable Eurocentric approach to archaeological inquiry in Africa, where Diaspora studies needed the backing of the African intellectual ancestry (Harris 1993, Walker 2001).
This chapter discusses some of the available evidence that constitute powerful sources for the reconstruction of the cultural process in the formation and transformation of the African Diaspora. Owing to the biases in archaeological interpretations and the failure of African archaeologists to assume the responsibility for interpreting the past, more questions than answers have emerged. Owing to this deplorable situation, several longstanding issues remain unresolved, such as the actual chronology, the appropriate methodology, the identification of past populations of African descent, and continuities of African traditions. These problems, reminiscent of typical Eurocentric approaches to African archaeology (Musonda 1990), continue to plague archaeological practice in the African Diaspora.
Identifying the African Diaspora
The identification of the origin of the people and culture of the African Diaspora continues to be an increasingly complicated and elusive problem. One difficulty is in identifying the geographical boundaries and the specific origins of groups of people (Newman 1996) and their cultural transfers; another is in ascertaining the nature of the pre-existing cultural traits among groups or societies who served as the carriers of the cultures (Martin and O’Meara 1977). Even more complex has been the reconstruction of the formation and transformation processes involved in the making of the African Diaspora. Only a very limited number of cultural traits can be said to characterize the entire African continent (Haviser and DeCorse 1991).
Many of the cultural transfers mentioned in the literature, such as language (Childs 2003), music, craft and architectural forms (Ebanks 1995; Denyer 1978) religious practices and social networking (Harris 1994; Clegg 1992; Bryan 1971), often prove not to be true transfers. Imported practices and food items have been adopted, modified and re-introduced into the New World, making it appear as if those re-introduced features were originally African. Cassava (manioc), for example, was introduced to Africa from South America, where it originated; but it re-entered the western hemisphere with certain distinctive preparation techniques used in Africa. Like food items, cultural behavior patterns have also gone through transformation, adaptation, and re-introduction. These complex situations pose challenges to researchers, particularly archaeologists, and can lead to distortions in interpretation. Unfortunately, archaeology, which can fill in the gaps in the evidence, has paid little attention to the African Diaspora until the last three decades or so and has done so at a slow and uncertain pace.
Far-reaching political, constitutional and educational changes following the successes of nationalist movements of the last part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century generated interest in studies of African continuities in the Diaspora. But, unfortunately, the mere desire to develop such studies did not necessarily ensure their realization, since archaeologists disagreed on the directions of study and achieved only uneven geographical coverage.
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About the Book
Africa and the African Diaspora is the outcome of a symposium held atPortland State University in Portland, Oregon (February 2002), entitled “Symposium on Freedom in Black History,” designed to celebrate Black History Month. The major themes of the conference were how Africans both at home on the continent and dispersed abroad, often by forces beyond their control, reacted to oppression and subjugation in seeking freedom from slavery, colonialism, and discrimination. The volume documents the many forms that oppression has taken, the many forms that resistance has taken, and the cultural developments that have allowed Africans to adapt to the new and changing economic, social and environmental conditions to win back their freedom. Oppressive strategies as divide-and-rule could be based on any one of a number of features, such as skin color, place of origin, culture, or social or economic status. People drawn into the vortex of the Atlantic trade and funneled into the sugar fields, the swampy rice lands or the cotton, coffee or tobacco plantations of the new world and elsewhere, had no alternative but to risk their lives for freedom. The plantation provided the context for the dehumanization of disadvantaged groups subjected to exhausting work, frequent punishment and personal injustice of every kind,
This book demonstrates that the history and interpretation of these struggles of the oppressed peoples to free themselves have not received proportionate attention and analysis, as have other aspects of that history.
About the Author
ABOUT THE EDITORS
E. Kofi Agorsah, PhD. (UCLA), co-editor of the volume, is professor of Black Studies and International Studies at Portland State University (PSU),
Formerly keeper of the
Dr. Agorsah’s books “Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives and Freedom in Black History & Culture (2001)” and “An Ethnoarchaeological Analysis of Human Functional Dynamics in the Volta Basin of Ghana: Before and After the Akosombo Dam” (2003)" continue to be used by many universities, particularly tertiary institutions in the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean as popular text and reference volumes. “
G. Tucker Childs, Ph.D. (UC Berkeley), professor of Applied Linguistics at PSU, and co-editor of the volume, has published extensively in the areas of African languages, sociolinguistics, pidgins and Creoles of Africa and the African Diaspora. Dr. Childs has researched extensively on African languages living and interacting with different ethnic groups. Like many young Americans in the 1960s he became interested in