The African Diaspora in the United States and Europe

The African Diaspora in the United States and Europe
Author: John A. Arthur
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317045483

This book systematically documents the experiences of Ghanaian communities in North America as a case study of the new African migration. The rapid increase in the number of Ghanaians lawfully admitted as permanent residents since 1980 offers an opportunity to investigate their immigrant journeys, their membership in the larger society and the expression of their individual and collective social identities. Using original empirical data from the US and Canada as well as comparative material from the UK and the Netherlands, the author also investigates the relationship between these new African migrants and the native-born black diaspora in the US. This study balances theoretical insight with policy implications, using the case-study as a lens not just on African migration but also on significant conceptual themes in migration studies including transnationalism, identity, social networks, remittances, economic integration and citizenship.

Brazilian-African Diaspora in Ghana

Brazilian-African Diaspora in Ghana
Author: Kwame Essien
Publisher: MSU Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2016-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1628952776

Brazilian-African Diaspora in Ghana is a fresh approach, challenging both pre-existing and established notions of the African Diaspora by engaging new regions, conceptualizations, and articulations that move the field forward. This book examines the untold story of freed slaves from Brazil who thrived socially, culturally, and economically despite the challenges they encountered after they settled in Ghana. Kwame Essien goes beyond the one-dimensional approach that only focuses on British abolitionists’ funding of freed slaves’ resettlements in Africa. The new interpretation of reverse migrations examines the paradox of freedom in discussing how emancipated Brazilian-Africans came under threat from British colonial officials who introduced stringent land ordinances that deprived the freed Brazilian- Africans from owning land, particularly “Brazilian land.” Essien considers anew contention between the returnees and other entities that were simultaneously vying for control over social, political, commercial, and religious spaces in Accra and tackles the fluidity of memory and how it continues to shape Ghana’s history. The ongoing search for lost connections with the support of the Brazilian government—inspiring multiple generations of Tabom (offspring of the returnees) to travel across the Atlantic and back, especially in the last decade—illustrates the unending nature of the transatlantic diaspora journey and its impacts.

Black African Neo-diaspora

Black African Neo-diaspora
Author: Ian E. A. Yeboah
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2008
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780739113523

Despite recent large numbers of African immigrants to the United States facilitated by the emergence of globalized labor markets, African immigration to the United States remains an understudied phenomenon. This book provides an intensive study of the experiences of an African immigrant group (Ghanaians) in a smaller Midwestern urban location (the greater Cincinnati area). Black African Neo-Diaspora focuses on why Ghanaians have immigrated to the United States and their travel trajectories to Cincinnati. The author examines the internal social institutions that have emerged within the community to help with integration of members of this group into broader American society, as well as the ways in which Ghanaian immigrants enter the business arena and how their economic activities are changing urban America. Gender dynamics within immigrant families and the identity and socialization of second-generation immigrants are also explored.

The Predicament of Blackness

The Predicament of Blackness
Author: Jemima Pierre
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226923029

What is the meaning of blackness in Africa? This title tackles the question of race in West Africa through its post-colonial manifestations. Pierre examines key facets of contemporary Ghanaian society, from the pervasive significance of 'whiteness' to the practice of chemical skin-bleaching to the government's active promotion of Pan-African 'heritage tourism'.

Gender and Sexuality in Ghanaian Societies

Gender and Sexuality in Ghanaian Societies
Author: Martha Donkor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2022-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793628459

Gender and Sexuality in Ghanaian Societies explores cultural dynamics embedded in the interstices of agency, vulnerability, and power within patriarchal structures that seek to regulate the sexual lives of women in Ghana. Emphasizing the centrality of gender as a motive force for sexual expression, the book stresses that contemporary Ghanaian women's sexual expressions are caught at the intersection of traditional gender expectations of heteronormativity and women’s perceptions of how heteronormativity should operate in their lives. The book's emphasis on women's agency is significant because it highlights a flaw in earlier, Western accounts of African women's lives under Africa's special brand of patriarchy that held women in total subjection to men. Gender and Sexuality debunks that trope and presents Ghanaian women's dynamism, resilience, and vulnerabilities embedded in the diverse cultures in which they live.

Pilgrimage Tourism of Diaspora Africans to Ghana

Pilgrimage Tourism of Diaspora Africans to Ghana
Author: Ann Reed
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2014-08-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317674995

Processes of globalization have led to diasporic groups longing for their homelands. One such group includes descendants from African ancestors displaced by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, who may be uncertain about their families' exact origins. Traveling home often means visiting African sites associated with the slave trade, journeys full of expectations. The remembrance of the slave trade and pilgrimages to these heritage sites bear resemblance to other diasporic travels that center on trauma, identification, and redemption. Based on over two years of ethnographic fieldwork with both diaspora Africans and Ghanaians, this book explores why and how Ghana has been cast as a pilgrimage destination for people of African descent, especially African Americans. Grounding her research in Ghana’s Central Region where slavery heritage tourism and political ideas promoting incorporation into one African family are prominent, Reed also discusses the perspectives of ordinary Ghanaians, tourism stakeholders, and diasporan "repatriates." Providing ethnographic insight into the transnational networks of people and ideas entangled in Ghana’s pilgrimage tourism, this book also contributes to better understanding the broader global phenomenon of diasporic travel to homeland centers.

The Akan Diaspora in the Americas

The Akan Diaspora in the Americas
Author: Kwasi Konadu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 521
Release: 2010-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199889279

In his groundbreaking study of the Akan diaspora, Kwasi Konadu demonstrates how this cultural group originating in West Africa both engaged in and went beyond the familiar diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never formed a majority among other Africans in the Americas. But their leadership skills in war and political organization, efficacy in medicinal plant use and spiritual practice, and culture archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far outweighed their sheer numbers. Konadu argues that a composite Akan culture calibrated between the Gold Coast and forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. The book examines the Akan experience in Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, former Danish and Dutch colonies, and North America, and how those early experiences foreground the modern engagement and movement of diasporic Africans and Akan people between Ghana and North America. Locating the Akan variable in the African diasporic equation allows scholars and students of the Americas to better understand how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still evolving.

As I Journey Along: A Ghanaian's Perception of Life in the Diaspora

As I Journey Along: A Ghanaian's Perception of Life in the Diaspora
Author: Gabriel Awuah
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2005-11-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 141165997X

The book gives accounts of the forces that drive many young people to migrate from the less Developed World, especially Ghana, to come and live in the Diaspora. Coming to live, work or pursue some goals in the Diaspora is for many young Ghanaians, for example, the ultimate goal worth striving after. In Ghana and in most Third World Countries, many people's perception of better life in the Diaspora is shared by many parents and some respectable people, a fact that also reinforces the drive to migrate to the Diaspora. That alone can help them develop their potentialities. But the journey is tough, full of adventure for all. How many have experienced the life in the Diaspora and how many feel detached from their place of birth, Ghana, are among the major themes discussed in this book. People that have migrated from their countries to seek fortunes or whatever in the Diaspora, Potential travellers and politicians in poor countries stand to gain from the experiences shared in this book.

Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora

Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora
Author: Rebecca Shumway
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474256643

Ghana-for all its notable strides toward more egalitarian political and social systems in the past 60 years-remains a nation plagued with inequalities stemming from its long history of slavery and slave trading. The work assembled in this collection explores the history of slavery in Ghana and its legacy for both Ghana and the descendants of people sold as slaves from the “Gold Coast” in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. The volume is structured to reflect four overlapping areas of investigation: the changing nature of slavery in Ghana, including the ways in which enslaved people have been integrated into or excluded from kinship systems, social institutions, politics, and the workforce over time; the long-standing connections forged between Ghana and the Americas and Europe through the transatlantic trading system and the forced migration of enslaved people; the development of indigenous and transnational anti-slavery ideologies; and the legacy of slavery and its ongoing reverberations in Ghanaian and diasporic society. Bringing together key scholars from Ghana, Europe and the USA who introduce new sources, frames and methodologies including heritage, gender, critical race, and culture studies, and drawing on archival documents and oral histories, Slavery and Its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora will be of great interest to scholars and students of comparative slavery, abolition and West African history.