Introduction: Rethinking the African Diaspora Judith Byfield, special issue editor The idea of one Africa to unite the thoughts and ideals of all native peo­ ples of the dark continent belongs to the twentieth century and stems nat­ urally from the West Indies and the United States. Here various groups of Africans, quite separate in origin, became so united in experience and so exposed to the impact of new cultures that they began to think of Africa as one idea and one land. —W.E.B. Du Bois This special issue of the ASR devoted to the African diaspora grew out of conversations at several African Studies Association meetings. In both for­ mal and informal settings, participants made note of the recent tidal wave of scholarly, funding, and political interest in the African diaspora. It is clear that the African diaspora will belong to the twenty-first century as much as it belongs to the twentieth. Yet despite the exciting conferences and the new journals, many Africanists remain concerned about the way Africa and even the diaspora have been constructed in the discussion. Geo­ graphically, the African diaspora has been conceived in very narrow terms. With a focus primarily on African descendants in western Europe and the Americas, African migration across the Indian Ocean often was over­ looked. Attention to Africa itself has been problematic. In some instances, Africa was elided from the discussion (Cooper 1996); while in others, the generalizations about Africa reflected an unawareness of the tremendous African Studies Review, Volume 43, Number 1 (April 2000), pp. 1-9 Judith Byfield is an associate professor of history at Dartmouth College where she teaches African and Caribbean history. Her main research interests are women's social and economic history in Nigeria. Her publications include "Innovation and Conflict: Cloth Dyers and the Interwar Depression in Western Nigeria" (Journal of African History 38 [1]) and "Pawns and Politics: The Pawnship Debate in Western Nigeria," in Toyin Falola and Paul Lovejoy, eds. Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective (1993). Herbook, The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Indigo Dyers in Abeokuta (Western Nigeria), 1850-1940 is forthcoming from Heinemann Press. 1 2 African Studies Review quantity of outstanding research that now exists on multiple aspects of African societies (Lovejoy 1997; Gomez 1998). In order to more deeply engage scholars writing on the African dias­ pora, the Pan-African Caucus sponsored a roundtable on the topic at the 1998 ASA conference in Chicago. There, Tiffany Ruby Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley presented a draft of their paper that attempted both to cri­ tique and to further the analysis of the African diaspora.2 The enthusiastic response at that session demonstrated the strong interest and reservations many Africanists share about this new generation of scholarship on the diaspora. This special issue builds upon that response and incorporates a broader range of perspectives on the diaspora. It presents a revised version of the Patterson and Kelley paper, commentaries on it from Africanists and non-Africanists, and articles from eight additional scholars. The articles and commentaries reflect the geographical, and to a lesser degree, the dis­ ciplinary breadth of diasporan scholarship. The articles in this volume accomplish several critical tasks. Collective­ ly they provide a provocative and stimulating critique of scholarship on the African diaspora. While the authors acknowledge limitations within a dias- poric framework, they nonetheless demonstrate that a diasporan perspec­ tive can refine our understanding of local, regional, and world histories. In addition, they identify critical theoretical and methodological issues that will influence research agendas of the twenty-first century. Mapping the African Diaspora in Thought and Space The geographical regions represented in this issue remind us that the dis­ persal of African populations was vast. Nonetheless, dispersal, as Patterson and Kelley point out, does not constitute a diaspora. According to Patter­ son and Kelley, the creation of a diaspora is in large measure contingent on a diasporic identity that links the constituent parts of that diaspora to a homeland. Contrary to Du Bois's suggestion, the notion of an African dias­ pora for which Africa was the homeland was not a natural development. It had to be socially and historically constituted, reconstituted, and repro­ duced. This is most apparent when one contrasts the development of a diasporic identity among African descendants on the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, and in the Americas. The crystallization of diasporic thought began very early in the history of African descended populations in North and South America. The major­ ity of these peoples were brought to the American shores as a consequence of the slave trade. As early as the eighteenth century, writers like Equiano helped establish a literary tradition that recalled Africa as a homeland. Equiano was certainly not alone. In Latin America, it can be argued that the writings of Juan Latino in the sixteenth century represented an even Rethinking the African Diaspora 3 earlier generation of diasporic thought (Patterson and Kelley 1998). Voluntary as well as enforced migration of Africans to the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia have a much longer history than the migration to the Americas, but as Ned Alpers argues in this volume, an equally well- articulated diasporic consciousness did not develop in these regions. The emphasis here is on articulation, for Alpers also demonstrates that although a literary tradition did not develop among African descendants across the Indian Ocean, one can still identify a number of cultural artifacts through which Africa was recalled. In parts of Oman, for example, Swahili still has currency, while in Gujarat, Indian sociologists have identified clan names that reveal African origin. Although the dispersal of Africans to these regions did not produce a comparable historical record of diasporic ruminations, conditions in the twentieth century have. Vijay Prashad shows that efforts to forge a diasporic consciousness and literature in India have taken a significant leap forward since the 1970s. Dalits, formerly called "untouchables," have forged a nationalist movement that links itself with the struggles of black peoples around the world and African Americans in particular. While Afro-Dalit scholars argue that Africans and Indians came from common ancestors, the recent development of this scholarship reinforces Patterson and Kel- ley's suggestion that we have to explore how a diasporic consciousness gets constructed and the historical, economic, and social factors that condition its development. In this case, African descent is only one factor of Dalit and African American common experience; they share histories of domination and resistance. They also share the temporal space of the late twentieth century in which advances in print, the internet, and other forms of com­ munication and travel allow greater access to each other and their respec­ tive constituencies. Consequently, Dalit construction of a diasporic identity has been more interdependent than that of previous generations. The rapid pace of technological change also facilitates greater inter­ dependence in refashioning diasporic cultural forms. In The Black Atlantic, Paul Gilroy illustrates how the evolution of the 1960s American hit "I'm So Proud" into the 1990 British reggae hit "Proud of Mandela" wove Africa, America, Europe, and the Caribbean together seamlessly. This song, which originated in the musical styles and experiences of black Chicagoans, was reformatted through Jamaican sensibilities and "produced in Britain by the children of Caribbean and African settlers to pay tribute to a South African hero" (1993:94-95). The particular sites of the diaspora that were foregrounded in the story of "I'm So Proud" also have a language in common English. Ivor Miller's contribution to this volume illuminates another genre of diasporic music. In Cuba, the Abakua society, a male secret society that derived principally from male leopard societies in the Cross River region of southeastern Nige­ ria, had a tremendous influence on popular music. Abakua words, chants, 4 African Studies Review and rhythms were incorporated into mambos and rumbas by musicians, many of whom belonged to Abakua societies. The popularity of Afro- Cuban jazz beyond the island's borders has taken these Abakua elements into Latin America, the United States, Japan, Europe, and multiple parts of Africa, especially Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This music is helping to fashion a diasporic consciousness that overrides the lan­ guage barriers created in part by former imperial borders. The distances traveled by these musical forms remind us that the relationship between Africa and the diaspora is not unidirectional. Abakua-inspired Afro-Cuban music also illuminates the dynamic rela­ tionship between expressive culture and politics as well as the complex nature of politics in the diaspora. Miller suggests that Cuba's Abakua prac­ titioners no longer look to Africa as the homeland. This music, whose his­ tory reflects the creativity and vitality of enslaved Africans, now stands as a symbol of Cuban identity and vitality despite the American embargo. As such it is part of the larger discourse that is not only a counterpoint but also a challenge and critique of capitalism and Euro-American