Book Description

Global Circuits of Blackness is a sophisticated analysis of the interlocking diasporic connections between Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas. A diverse and gifted group of scholars delve into the contradictions of diasporic identity by examining at close range the encounters of different forms of blackness converging on the global scene. Contributors examine the many ways blacks have been misrecognized in a variety of contexts. They also explore how, as a direct result of transnational networking and processes of friction, blacks have deployed diasporic consciousness to interpellate forms of white supremacy that have naturalized black inferiority, inhumanity, and abjection. Various essays document the antagonism between African Americans and Africans regarding heritage tourism in West Africa, discuss the interaction between different forms of blackness in Toronto's Caribana Festival, probe the impact of the Civil Rights movement in America on diasporic communities elsewhere, and assess the anxiety about HIV and AIDS within black communities. The volume demonstrates that diaspora is a floating revelation of black consciousness that brings together, in a single space, dimensions of difference in forms and content of representations, practices, and meanings of blackness. Diaspora imposes considerable flexibility in what would otherwise be place-bound fixities. Contributors are Marlon M. Bailey, Jung Ran Forte, Reena N. Goldthree, Percy C. Hintzen, Lyndon Phillip, Andrea Queeley, Jean Muteba Rahier, Stéphane Robolin, and Felipe Smith.