Black Subjects in Africa and Its Diasporas: Race and Gender in Research and Writing

by B. Talton (Editor), Q. Mills (Editor)

Overview

Through the research and experiences of 16 scholars whose native homes span ten countries, this collection shifts the discussion of belonging and affinity within Africa and its diaspora toward local perceptions and the ways in which these notions are asserted or altered.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349296972
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	08/02/2011
Edition description:	1st ed. 2011
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x (d)

About the Author

BENJAMIN TALTON is an Assistant Professor of History at Temple University, USA.

QUINCY T. MILLS is an Assistant Professor of History at Vassar College, USA.

Table of Contents

Race, Gender and the Research Subject: An Introduction; B.Talton  & Q.T.Mills Researching while Black: Interrogating and Navigating Boundaries of Belonging in the Andes; S.Busdiecker Posing as Subject: Compromise and the Art of Access in Trinidad; H.Neptune Translating Hybrid Cultures: Quandaries of an Indian-Australian Ethnographer in Cuba; S.Fernandes Where to Find Black Identity in Buenos Aires; J.Anderson 'You Don't Look Groomed': Rethinking Black Barber Shops as Public Spaces in the United States; Q.T.Mills The 'Dark Sheep' of the Atlantic World: Following the Transnational Trail of Blacks to Canada; D.J.Broyld The Strange Life of Lusotropicalism in Luanda: On Race, Nationality and Sexuality in Angola; J.Krug Quenching the Thirst for Data: Beer, Local Connections and Fieldwork in Ghana; B.Talton (African-) American Woman Outsider: Nationality, Race and Gender in Field Research in Mozambique; F.Henderson Mamatoma 'The Chief's Namesake': Strategies for Research and Belonging in Sierra Leone; L.R.Day

Editorial Reviews

"The beauty of this book rests not only in its cutting-edge scholarship, but also in its rare honesty about the salience of one s identity as researcher vis-à-vis "subjects"; about the shifting constructions of Blackness relative to research locale; and, about ever-present power dynamics, albeit unspoken, in interviews in field research. Its critique of conventional research methodology, which assumes researchers of Africa and the African Diaspora are white, is long overdue and liberating for students and scholars. A must-read, it puts race, self-reflection, and researcher humility at the center of knowledge production." - Lisa Aubrey, Associate Professor, Department of African and African American Studies, Arizona State University"I strongly recommend this book to readers interested in field research, especially in its complex personal and political dynamics in African and African diasporic situations. The contributors offer compelling insights into the challenges and vulnerabilities of fieldwork, whether it is undertaken as ethnography, oral history, or the qualitative pursuit of other social sciences. This book clearly illuminates field work as a mode of investigation and knowledge co-production that is socially negotiated, fraught with ethical challenges, and predicated on the effective navigation of anxieties and ambiguities that may be read or, in some cases, misread, with potentially significant outcomes for nuancing and deepening our understanding of past andpresent social realities." - Faye V. Harrison, author of Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age"Following in the tradition of Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou, this collection explores the ways encounters between researchers and the communities they visit continually reshape and reinterpret African diaspora identities. A compelling and refreshingly frank look at issues in African diaspora fieldwork - essential in the face of all the silences in the historical record - that will be of interest to ethnographers, anthropologists, oral historians, and cultural travelers everywhere." - Kim D. Butler, Associate Professor of History, Department of Africana Studies, Rutgers University

From the Publisher