African Diaspora Analysis

The conceptualization and theorization of the African diaspora comes from the understanding of experiences and history of the dispersed people of African descent throughout the world. The diaspora of the African people has been understood through numerous means, which has allowed scholars the ability to explore the dispersion in terms of major themes, most commonly identity and memory. These themes are significant in understanding the diaspora because it allows a platform for people of African descent to comprehend and possibly relate to the chronicles of those of the African Diaspora. This possible relation between the two creates a basis that allows the consideration of whether the experiences of the African-descended can be placed together …show more content…
The theme of identity is completely present in the conceptualization of the diaspora because the migration of these people forces them to have to be integrated with the culture of the area they have come in to, but they also try to keep the culture of their homeland alive. The clashing of these cultures affects the identity of those who have gone through the migration. Paul Gilroy regards the clashing of cultures and multiracial identity in terms of the African Diaspora through Europe to explain the problems of concept in his text, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. The clashing of cultures leads the people of the African Diaspora to deal with the overlapping diasporas concept. The concept of overlapping diasporas came from Earl Lewis, who believed that those of have gone through the African Diaspora usually fit into several overlapping diasporas. This idea, which allows people to see that the diaspora is not a one size fits all situation, but rather a dynamic one will relates to many concepts, goes hand-in-hand with W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of double consciousness. Du Bois defines double consciousness, in his text The Souls of Black Folk, as the idea of the split identity that African-Americans felt as an attempt to be both black and American. The …show more content…
The theme of memory, in regards to the diaspora, proposes another method of cultural formation and emphasizes some important tensions of diasporic tendencies. The argument for the concept of memory is that memories provide a different source of information from remembrance and commemoration to shape a cultural formation. This concept goes together with other concepts, like déclage, sameness and difference, and intercultural address. These three concepts share a similar idea of acknowledging similarities and differences in order to recognize the diaspora. Understanding the differences in culture supports that notion of organizing together the experiences of the African-descended with the experiences of those from the African Diaspora and Black Atlantic. Memory venerates past experiences and history of similarities and differences in the cultures of the different people of the African Diaspora, which plays a central role in constituting diasporic culture and