Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities, and Economy, Samuel O. Oloruntoba

Abstract

Reviewed by: Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities, and Economy ed. by Samuel O. Oloruntoba Nana Afua Y. Brantuo BOOK REVIEW of Oloruntoba, Samuel O., ed. 2017. Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities, and Economy. Austin, Texas: Pan-African University Press. 400 pp. Adorning the cover of Samuel O. Oloruntoba's edited collection, Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities and Economy, is a simple design—a map of Africa resting on top of a pattern akin to that of textiles woven throughout the African continent. Within the map, several words capture the themes of this monograph. The word diaspora, the biggest and boldest in font, is centered and surrounded by development, history, slavery, identity, immigrant, and other words. The cover, in its aesthetic consistency and deliberateness, functions as shorthand for the book's focus on reorienting the conceptualization and study of the African diaspora as grounded in Paul Zeleza's (2005) definition of diaspora as process, condition, space, and discourse.1 This collection and synthesis of papers from more than two dozen scholars of African and African diasporic studies foregrounds the significance of mirroring the complexity and multiplicity of African diasporic life and experiences in academic exploration and inquiry. Movement and mobility, and the myriad phenomena borne out of the two, are no strangers to the African diaspora, which, spanning time and place, occupies a distinct, multidimensional space within diaspora studies. Africa and Its Diaspora, published by Pan-African University Press—a platform dedicated to revitalizing discourse related to Africa and the African diaspora—functions as both an academic and a political project, which centers the perspectives of African and African diasporic scholars across fields and disciplines. Divided into five parts, it delves into aspects of development at the micro and macro levels: politics of identity and belonging, [End Page 144] the legacies of and challenges posed by slavery and colonialism, the arts and development, religion and development, and alternative development strategies. The chapters within each section employ various methods and methodologies in an attempt to give nuance to their respective populations and topics of inquiry. Section one brings forth a theme of resilience and (re)creation at both the individual and collective levels of the diaspora by way of biographical, ethnographic, philosophical, and survey research, while section two utilizes historical, archival, archaeological, and anthropological methods to approach and reapproach the effects of slavery and colonialism on and off the African continent. Sections three, four, and five take on several spheres of development. In section three, various artistic mediums form the basis of postcolonial discourse and analysis of sociopolitical and sociohistorical African and African diaspora experiences. Section four focuses on multiple ways in which religion, past and present, has influenced the social, physical, and political infrastructures of West African societies. The book concludes with a focus on alternative development strategies, addressing the causes of contemporary forced migration out of Africa, resituating traditional economic systems in place of microcredit and microfinance schemes, and other topics. This section includes discourse on the role of youth in development, the necessity of African integration in resolving complex political, economic, and social issues, and the need to critique and discard the neoliberal development agenda throughout Africa. Overall, this volume makes space for necessary discourse on the past, present, and future for Africa and the African diaspora, offering historical and contemporary analyses alongside proposed recommendations and resolutions for ongoing issues affecting African and African diaspora communities across borders. While the cohesion of the chapters may seem challenged by variation in the communities of focus, the volume in and of itself exhibits the continuum of identities across Africa and the African diaspora, regardless of point of departure, return, or transition. Nana Afua Y. Brantuo University of Maryland, College Park note 1. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. 2005. "Rewriting the African Diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic." African Affairs 104, no. 414 (2005): 35–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3518632. Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Indiana University