On Conceptualising African Diasporas in Europe

The article argues that there are three senses of the term African diaspora – a continental, a cultural and a racial sense – which need to be distinguished from each other when conceptualising Black African diasporas in Europe. Although African Diaspora Studies is occupied with African diasporas in a racial sense, usually it has conceptualised these in terms of racial and cultural identities. This is also true of the past decades of African Diaspora Studies on Europe. This article makes an argument for a socio-political conceptualisation of Black African diasporas in Europe that includes, but goes beyond, matters of identity and culture.

On décalages in the African Diaspora

This paper explores Brent Edwards’s 2001 notion of “décalage” and its role in the evolution of the African diaspora studies. I argue that this notion should be profoundly considered in envisioning the future of the field since it not only reflects the original chasm between African and African-American understandings of the diaspora as Edwards states, but it also illustrates how the diaspora has gradually turned into multiple and sometimes scattered diasporas. I also contend that this multiplicity forces us to question what unites African and Afro-descendants today. I do so relying on Gilles Deleuze’s disjunctive synthesis to examine these three dimensions of diasporan relations. I also discuss how ideological frameworks such as Pan-Africanism or Négritude bridged differences thanks to key ideas of emancipation, black existence and connected struggles. I finally explore contemporary models that could renew diaspora studies: Africana and Afro-liminalities.

Leveraging Africa’s Global Diasporas for the Continent’s Development

In this paper I seek to share some of the insights I have gained from my studies on the African diaspora over the past two decades. It begins by mapping out some of the analytical framings of African Diaspora Studies, with particular reference to the spatial scope and temporal dimensions of the African diaspora. This is followed by an examination of the multiple and multi-layered contributions that African diasporas have made and continue to make to African societies and countries. The paper analyses some of the challenges that undermine more productive engagements between the diasporas and their countries or regions of origin. The paper concludes by focusing an academic initiatives that aim to strengthen the project of engaging African diasporas for Africa’s sustainable development, namely, the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program.