Diasporic Africa: A Reader

Abstract

Diasporic Africa: A Reader. Edited by Michael Gomez. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Pp. viii, 317. $70.00 cloth, $23.00 paper. This collection of essays makes a fine introduction to recent scholarship on the African Diaspora, from the slave trade and the geographic dispersal of African people, to the modern conceptualization of the Diaspora as an imagined homeland. Gomez presents a wide, interdisciplinary presentation, which is hardly comprehensive, and not a textbook presentation, but rather a sample of current trends and research. The book is divided into three broad parts: the first is dedicated to the period of slavery, generally the African background and its transformation in America; the second deals with historical developments in the nineteenth century; and the final section covers the recent and contemporary period. In the first part, Frederick Knight presents new research showing how important African knowledge of indigo production was for the development of its processing in the Americas, shadowing the already celebrated work that has been done on rice production elsewhere. Joâo Jose Reis's article reveals the complexity of African dances and social-religious gatherings in Brazil, both in terms of the ambiguous reactions that whites had to them, and as a potential vehicle for revolts. James Sweet's article on calundu is one of the best in the book, showing how catundu evolved from a spiritual ceremony of Central African origin to a generic African dance in Brazil, eventually crossed the ocean to Europe as a musical form, and then returned to Brazil. Sweet's article on the naturalization of an African tradition provides a good transition to the second part of the book, in which Africa is evoked, but not directly remembered by American-born African Americans. Jerome Archer shows how nineteenth-century African American writers used concepts of African origin like conjure ancestor veneration, possession, and flying to create a special identity for themselves. Diane Botts Morrow's article on the Oblate Sisters in Baltimore is a fine piece tracing the growth of this African American order, with some less convincing attempts to connect it to West African precedents. Fran Markowitz's study of the African Hebrew Israelite community reveals a self-created ideology rooted in conceptions of Africa that are not informed by direct knowledge or folk memory, a piece that sets the stage for further work, which is followed up by Elizabeth Pigou-Denis's contribution on the development of Rastafarian architecture with its connections to an imagined Ethiopia. …