The Formation of Diaspora, Part II
Photo by Atiya Walker on Unsplash. Originally published in AphroChic magazine Issue 6, Spring 2021.
Out of Many, Many
From its beginning, one of the key separations between the African Diaspora concept and the Pan-Africanism that it was created to replace, was its focus on difference rather than unity as the most crucial element of the relationship between the cultures that comprise it. It was to address the growing sense of difference between Black cultures that scholar George Shepperson, as well as Joseph Harris, first introduced the idea of the African Diaspora in 1965. From there, more voices joined, including British cultural studies luminary Stuart Hall, to more deeply and eloquently explore the nature of the distinctions between Diaspora cultures.
The idea that these cultures were different was not, by itself, new. Everyone was aware prior to 1965 that there were differences between West Indian and African American cultures or between Black communities that spoke English and those that spoke French (to say nothing of those which speak Spanish). But prior to 1965, Pan-Africanist philosophies largely held these differences to be more or less superficial variations imposed over an underlying self that was essentially African. By the 1980s however, these differences were increasingly felt to represent the truest parts of our cultures, placing the belief in a universally African self in serious doubt. In particular, Hall’s concept of “Articulation” helped recast the Pan-Africanist image of Black cultures around the world, reforming it as the complex set of interactions between connected but ultimately distinct entities that we now know as the African Diaspora. It was a process that would continue to challenge not only our shared notion of self, but even the role of the nation-state in the creation of culture.
Paul Gilroy and The Black Atlantic
One of the most significant theoretical interventions in the development of African Diaspora theory came in the early '90s. A striking new direction taken by British historian Paul Gilroy, a student of Hall’s whose early overtures against British ethnocentrism led him to completely re-imagine the African Diaspora concept. Gilroy’s 1993 opus, The Black Atlantic, is a treatise against all essentialist theories of cultural production — particularly those that rely on geography as a means of justifying positions of ethnocentricity. Perhaps in response to the pervasiveness of “African American essentialism” within American Black Studies programs, Gilroy focuses his attention on W.E.B. DuBois and Richard Wright, two paragons of African American intellectual and cultural history. In considering the life and work of each, Gilroy emphasizes the extended periods of travel, work, and study abroad that took place throughout their respective careers. Stressing the extremely formational influence that exposure outside of the United States had on them, Gilroy argues against the idea that their work or even they themselves should be considered “African American” in the strictest sense.
In many ways, The Black Atlantic signifies Gilroy’s continuation of the work of decentralization as suggested by Shepperson and furthered by Hall. Not only is Africa removed as the central cog giving meaning and cohesion to a network of derivative cultures, it is removed from the area of study entirely as Gilroy shifts attention to cultural interactions among the descendants of the displaced without special regard for the original site of displacement. By emphasizing the “roots and routes” of cultural transmission, reinforced by the constant symbolic imagery of the ship, which he states, “remained perhaps the most important conduit of Pan-African communication before the appearance of the long-playing record,” Gilroy argues against the nation-state as the site of ethnically-based cultural essentialisms, positing instead that it is in the in-between spaces that culture is most authentically produced. Thus the Black Atlantic is an amorphous system of relationships rather than a coherent network of interactions between monolithically defined states
The impetus for this dynamically abstract approach to culture, identity and belonging, may be found in Gilroy’s earlier works and perspective as a Black Britain. As he describes in Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack:
Black Britain defines itself crucially as part of a diaspora. Its unique cultures draw inspiration from those developed by black populations elsewhere. In particular, the culture and politics of black America and the Caribbean have become raw materials for creative processes which redefine what it means to be black, adapting it to distinctively British experience and meanings. Black culture is actively made and re-made.
Thus in defining the Black Atlantic, Gilroy is extrapolating what he has already identified as being the process of cultural creation and identity formation in his own context to the wider diaspora, itself the evolving result of a series of ongoing cultural interactions. In the process, Gilroy assumes a position of “anti-anti-essentialism” – one which views culture neither as, “a fixed essence, nor as a vague and utterly contingent construction to be reinvent - ed by the will and whim of aesthetes, symbolists, and language gamers.”
The Black Atlantic drew passionate responses, both positive and negative. In return, it provided scholars with such fertile ground for consideration and debate that well into the 21st century that Gilroy has remained, “the one theorist cited in almost all recent considerations of the [African Diaspora],” according to Edwards. As a result, the term, “Black Atlantic” has gained such currency that it may one day rival “diaspora” for its multitude of uses and definitions. Branching out from its own specifically Diaspora-focused roots, the website of the Tate museum defines the Black Atlantic as, “the fusion of black cultures with other cultures from around the Atlantic.”
Minding the Gap
Following the impact of The Black Atlantic there have been continued attempts to define difference within the African Diaspora concept. The 2001 essay The Uses of Diaspora by Brent Hayes Edwards examines the history of the concept in the hope of offering a handle with which to grasp the rapidly multiplying applications of the term. Drawing heavily from Hall’s Articulation and Derrida’s use of Differance, Edwards offered his own intervention into the ongoing conversation with Dècalage, meaning literally “gap,” “discrepancy,” “time-lag,” or “interval.” Dècalage, Edwards posits, is the substance that holds together Hall’s articulated notion of diaspora. As he explains:
Any articulation of diaspora…would be inherently décalé or disjointed by a host of factors. Like a table with legs of different lengths, or a tilted bookcase, diaspora can be discursively propped up (calé) into an artificially “even” or “balanced” state of “racial” belonging. But such props, of rhetoric, strategy, or organization, are always articulations of unity or globalism, ones that can be “mobilized” for a variety of purposes but can never be definitive: they are always prosthetic. In this sense, décalage is proper to the structure of a diasporic “racial” formation, and its return in the form of disarticulation— the points of misunderstanding, bad faith, unhappy translation—must be considered a necessary haunting.
Thus the articulation of diaspora, by its very nature, creates a series of gaps which function not only as distinctions between cultures, but as the repository of all that cannot be translated from one culture to another. Edwards uses the image of joints in the body to present décalage as that which enables the “two-ness” of the joint – the means of difference within unity.
The Same Coin: Unity and Difference
The fundamental point of departure between Pan-Africanism and Diaspora is whether the “truth” of Black cultures is found in their commonalities or their distinctions.
Pan-Africanism endorsed unity as a matter of cultural expedience and political necessity. And as the need for international Black political activity was thought to be disappearing, Diaspora began to emphasize difference. Certainly there are strong points to be made for both. The political function of establishing an ideology of sameness between Black cultures globally, to whatever level of success, is undeniable. At the same time, earlier parts of this series have explored the fact that the African diaspora is not comprised of groups of people dispersed from a single nation but of groups dispersed from many nations and to many nations, wherein the unique processes of history forged not a single group’s reinterpretation of their former culture, but new cultures for new peoples formed in different measures out of the cultures of the oppressed, the oppressors and everyone they met along the way. That there is as much that distinguish - es these cultures as unites them is inevitable. But before we choose sides between universal sameness and uncrossable difference, there are a few points to examine.
First, we should consider whether any argument for unity still remains. The political impetus for emphasizing international unity among Black people at the time of Diaspora’s introduction was, in fact waning. Pan-Africanism had largely accomplished the goal of liberating African and Caribbean nations from colonial rule. However liberation did not necessarily mean equality, particularly for internally colonized populations in The United States and elsewhere. As cultural collaboration eclipsed political cooperation as the primary form of interaction for the Diaspora, deeper and more pervasive issues continued to exist.
Among the many things that 2020 has tried to show us has been the clear fact that racism and oppression continue to shape and even end Black lives around the world. But 2020 not only highlighted the problem, it demonstrated the potential for political cooperation between international Black communities. The Black Lives Matter Movement exploded in 2020, becoming a global movement as the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police sparked massive protests around the world.
Inspired by the American movement and similar incidents in their own countries, activists such as Assa Traoré and Djamila Ribeiro have brought attention to the problems of racism and police violence in places such as Australia, France, and Brazil as well as Nigeria. In considering unity therefore, there remains, not only the cultural basis but an ongoing need.
Jamal Muchongwe for COS.
Still the question remains. Unity or difference? Are our truest selves are found in our points of overlap or divergence? Only it turns out that this isn’t really much of a question, because the two are not mutually exclusive.
Unity presupposes difference. In the absence of difference there exists only a single whole, of which unity is a prerequisite. This is true whether discussing a single human body or humanity as whole. The point of difference between any two forms is perforce the point of unity, if it is to exist, because prior to difference, unity is not possible. Therefore a diaspora, like every other cultural category, must be an articulation — a knitting together of distinguishable bones, because if dispersal had not differentiated our cultures then diaspora could not unite them.
So What?
Between the two poles of this argument, the question is primarily one of emphasis. There are things that Diaspora cultures have in common and things that are unique to each. Neither can be said to exclusively house that which is truly or essentially us because what we are, regard - less of which culture we come from (often more than one), is a function of both things together. Strip everything that is unique from any Diaspora culture and what remains will not be a pristine version of an ancient African original. Yet if we define ourselves only by our distinctions, we could easily lose sight of each other.
Arguably, this was the case when, in 2015, British-born, Nigerian journalist Zipporah Gene penned the article, “Black America, please stop appropriating African clothing and tribal marks.” Targeting the incorporation of various African religious and cultural symbols in the fashion choices of African Americans attending AfroPunk, the article cuts a wide swath by asking the question, “Can Black people culturally appropriate one another?” deciding ultimately that we can and, at least in the case of African Americans, we do.
While Gene’s argument garnered wide - spread response at the time, the sentiment itself was not new. In 1995, Nigerian scholar, Olufemi Taiwo published, “Appropriating Africa: An Essay on New Africanist Schools.” In his introduction, the relationship of African Americans to Africa is reduced to Africa, “[serving] generations of Americans on African descent as a beacon of inspiration in the face of incredible odds…,” and African Americans, “[seeing] in Africa and its history, such as they understand it, a source for narratives and forms of socio-political discourse to counter the racist denials of African contributions to…United States history and civilization.”
The argument of appropriation from both Gene and Taiwo insists that African Americans are accessing cultures that they have no connection and therefore no right to. Looking at the combination of symbols in the dress of any one AfroPunk attendee, Gene calls the result, “a hodgepodge, a juxtaposition.” And while to her “it screams ignorance and cultural insensitivity,” violating what she describes in another article as a strict covenant among Africans to remain within their specific cultural boundaries, she is perhaps missing the internal logic that for a person of any Diaspora culture, “a right mess of [African] regional, ethnic and cultural customs,” is exactly what we are. To pare down that connection to any one location or ethnicity, even if confirmed genetically, would be to deny all the rest of what we are culturally, severing every other tie to the continent and to our own unique histories.
Photo by Julian Myles on Unsplash.
Gene’s argument not only dismisses the connection of Diaspora cultures to African symbols, it forgets the history of figures such as DuBois and Nkrumah collaborating to introduce kente cloth as an international fashion trend specifically to foster a sense of global Black unity. Similarly Taiwo ignores the history of collaboration between African, American and Caribbean communities throughout the colonial period by casting the relationship as a one-way syphoning of meaning — African Americans taking from Africa that which they don’t understand to provide that which they don’t have. This series has hopefully shown, at least in the smallest part, there was and is a little more to it than that.
Both cases demonstrate, as Gilroy might attest, the dangers of geographically-based cultural essentialisms. Fellow Black Brit Zipporah Gene makes a particularly interesting argument in that regard. Gilroy describes Black British culture as defining itself, “crucially as part of a diaspora,” actively making and remaking itself out of the raw cultural material provided by Black communities in the Americas and Caribbean. By the rules of appropriation Gene sets down, that culture would be either completely impossible, or guilty of appropriation on a massive scale.
More specifically, these examples show how diaspora’s emphasis on difference can come at the cost of recognizing our innate con - nection, causing us to misrecognize moments of cultural intersection as attacks on cultural soverignty. To deny ourselves these connections would be tragic, culturally, while at the same time causing us to miss important opportunities to work together across boundaries on issues that affect us all. This does not absolve African Americans or members of any Diaspora culture of the important responsibility to educate ourselves on the meanings of the cultural artifacts of any other Diaspora culture, but it does draw an important distinction between interpretation and appropriation.
The shift from Pan-Africanism’s underlying African self to Diaspora’s focus on cultural specificity was a massive shift in how Black people around the world understood themselves in relationship to one another. With scholars such as Hall, Gilroy, and Edwards among many others, leading the way it paved the road to the rich, complex tapestry of cultures that we enjoy today as the African Diaspora. But there must be balance, because left unchecked that focus can lead to a place where difference is all we have and diaspora devolves into a series of competing ethnocentrisms, which to be fair, has always been a concern. But if neither unity nor difference are, by themselves, the defining characteristic of the African Diaspora, it begs the question, what is?