African Odyssey Research Articles

Performing Ellen: Mojisola Adebayo’sMoj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey(2008) andRunning a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery(1860)

The subject of Mojisola Adebayo’s one-woman performance, Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey, is Ellen Craft, an ex-slave whose escape from the slave-owning state of Georgia to England in the late 1840s is recounted in the escape narrative Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. Rather than using her performance to present her biographical subject with an interiority the original slave narrative scarcely offers her, Adebayo reconstitutes Ellen and relocates her in an auto/biographical work that self-consciously blurs the boundaries between autobiography, biography, and biofiction, thus exposing the overlap and interdependency of these textual forms. Through a detailed analysis of both texts and their contexts, this essay argues that Adebayo constructs a figurative, first person auto/biography of Ellen Craft, a “call and response” production, originating in an “intimate, somatic engagement with the body of another”, whose “touch” sets up a fluid process of identification. Her work performs a textual revision of the slave narrative genre and its rich, socio-cultural contexts. As a performed, auto/biographical reimagining of Ellen Craft’s flight from slavery Moj of the Antarctic, like Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, transgresses multiple borders and, in the process, subverts expectations of what constitutes an authentic self. It deconstructs conventionally defined categories of race, gender, and sexuality and radically extends the Crafts’ own examination of the meaning of freedom.

Theorising the African digital public sphere: a West African odyssey

ABSTRACTThis theoretical discussion about the impact of information and communication technologies on journalistic practices and the digital public spheres in West Africa, asks two key questions: 1) To what extent does the ICT-enabled impact on journalism practice contribute to the rejuvenation of the public sphere in African societies, and 2) What are the methodological changes of investigating these contributions? Scholars have argued that advances in ICTs can be used to initiate alternative forms of news production and citizen engagement that would either augment the efforts of the mainstream news media in African countries or, if need be, bypass the challenges they face. This argument sits well within current debates about the use and impact of ICTs on news consumption, journalistic practices, and the expansion of the public sphere. As many African countries still aspire towards functioning and modern democratic structures, there is a clear need for further academic discussion on, and empirical research into, this technology-led transformation of journalism. The connection of these challenges with the emancipation of the public sphere is evident, and thus we arrive at the questions this article addresses by drawing on published literature of both theoretical and empirical contexts, as well as the author's observations and research.

Gender, Authenticity, and Diasporic Identities in Adebayo’s Moj of the Antarctic and Iizuka’s 36 Views

As feminist scholarship has well established, gender does not exist independently; instead, it is a category that comes into being through its multiple intersections with ethnicity, nation, sexuality, and other identities. For this reason, it is particularly important to examine diasporic women's negotiations of identity, and the multiple categories and oppressions under which they live. Mojisola Adebayos 2006 play Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey and Naomi Iizukas 2002 play 36 Views both make significant contributions to the drama of women in the diaspora, but neither has been given the scholarly attention one might expect. Moreover, despite their different national and cultural focuses, these plays bear a number of striking similarities. They use similar theatrical techniques to explore diasporic women's experiences and the vast variety of ways that women in the diaspora use diverse literary and artistic traditions to renegotiate their identities. As part of this negotiation, both plays portray women who subversively and self-reflexively reimagine women of the past, and both plays consistently emphasize the inauthenticity of these imagined pasts. Furthermore, the plays suggest that engaging with women of the past can be a catalyst for diasporic women to reexamine their own identities and desires in ways that challenge the intersection of oppressions that Black British and Asian American women face. Thus, this inauthenticity does not diminish the relevance of these women of the past to modern diasporic identities. To the contrary, it is precisely by foregrounding the inauthenticity of the women of the past that these plays reveal the complexities of the intersections of gender, diaspora, and sexuality. Drawing on Nira Yuval-Davis's work on diaspora and the politics of belonging and Katie King s work on the co-constitution of past and present, I argue that both plays exemplify the political potential of inauthentic reimaginings of women of the past. These plays reimagine women of the distant past in ways that undermine the desire for authenticity and direct access to history; in doing so, they offer a reconceptualization of the relationship between past and present that draws attention to, rather than erases, diasporic women's multiple identifications. Diasporic Identity as Textual Odyssey Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey is a one-woman show in which the actor-playwright plays a character called Moj, named after the author herself. The play was first performed to strong reviews in November 2006 at the Lyric Hammersmith in London, directed by Sheron Wrey, and was later performed at the Oval House Theatre and Queer Up North, as well as on a British Council tour of Southern Africa, all with Adebayo as the solo performer. Moj begins the play as a slave in the antebellum American South, and then proceeds to take a series of journeys to various corners of the Atlantic Ocean in search of her freedom and, arguably, her identity. The lone performer also plays the roles of the characters Moj interacts with, as well as a griot character called The Ancient, who begins, ends, and comments on the play. Using multimedia and engaging audience participation, the play shows the experiences and resonances of its various shifting characters, all the while weaving into the dialogue quotes from Herman Melville, Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Ernest Shackleton, John Milton, and many others. (1) Moj's narrative begins while she is working as a slave; she is tasked mostly with housekeeping, a position she obtained because she is also the daughter of the slave owner. Moj develops a loving but forbidden sexual relationship with another slave, a woman named May. May was illegally taught to read by a previous owner, and as their relationship develops, she teaches Moj to read and to love literature, thus spurring in Moj both intellectual and sexual awakenings. Moj proceeds to quote and occasionally mock the words of famous authors in her father's library and also to write erotic and romantic poems to May, interacting with literary traditions in ways that are often playful or even subversive. …

“Where the Mask Ends and the Face Begins Is Not Certain”: Mediating Ethnicity and Cheating Geography in Jonny Steinberg's Little Liberia

Summary Mixing historical commentary, reportage, biography and personal stories, South African writer Jonny Steinberg takes up the tale of a fractured African nation and its diaspora in Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City (2011). The “little Liberia” founded in New York's urban jungle may have represented, for many of its inhabitants, a way to “cheat geography” by recreating a home away from home, but Little Liberia shows the reader it has not allowed them to cheat history. The book deals with the lives of two inhabitants of Park Hill Avenue on Staten Island, where nearly everyone is Liberian. Their conflict threatens to implode the community, igniting suspicions and accusations that had been bottled up since their exile. The article focuses on the interface of mediated ethnicity and citizenship related to the struggle for power in the diasporic Liberian community on Staten Island. Attention is also paid to feelings of identity of Little Liberia's author.

Towards an Africa-centered and pan-African theory of communication: Ubuntu and the oral-aesthetic perspective

This article supports scholarly findings that Bantu traditions are among the strongest civilising forces in the United States. Positing pop music as a paradigm of proof, the author argues for a cultural decolonisation and corrective understanding of this expression as a manifestation of Africa's oral traditions and the global agency of the continent's cultural custodians. The Euro-patriarchal episteme that has formalised the language of music appreciation has, through its inherent incapacity or lack of political will to grant proper academic status to these mature modes of human discourse, promoted a diminished regard of oral tradition and its pop music formats as low-brow fodder for entertainment industry exploitation. Recognising that such north–south circumscriptions have served to disenfranchise humanity as a whole, the author reasons that ubuntu has nonetheless extended its humanising reach into the pan-African and global village by captivating and cultivating the popular imagination through effective, Africa-centered modes of oral communication. A culturally congruent theoretical framework is advanced to illuminate the transformational art-for-life's-sake mission of an epic African odyssey.

A History of the Cuban Revolution

This book is a useful textbook for undergraduate students and a welcome addition to the historiography on the Cuban Revolution. I would even strongly recommend it to any tourist visiting the island since it is concise, very well written, and easy to digest. Despite Chomsky’s sympathies for the Cuban Revolution, her account provides a balanced history of Cuba after 1959.The book contains an introduction and eight chapters covering a wide range of topics, effectively cultivating a fascinating multidisciplinary approach. Chomsky reminds us that the Cuban Revolution was not only a political event but, equally important, it “was also social, cultural, economic, artistic, and many other things” (p. 6). This of course is easy to say but very difficult to illustrate in a textbook. Chomsky manages to do so in a stylish fashion. Finally, the general context in which the Cuban Revolution takes place is also well established in an engaging way.Most chapters can stand alone. Chapter 1 deals with Cuban colonial history, post-colonial history up to 1959, and the 1959 revolution itself. Chapter 2 deals with the first years of the revolution. Here Chomsky makes it clear that “Cuba’s new leaders vowed to break the island’s historic dependence on sugar exports” (p. 50), but I was unable to discover why, despite this resolution, Cuba remained so dependent on sugar for so long after the revolution. Chapter 3 provides fascinating material on Cuban relations with the United States, in particular for the 1960s, by focusing on the many terrorist attacks against Cuban subjects performed with the support of the CIA and the FBI. The treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, albeit brief, provides an up-to-date version of this important event in world history.Chapter 4 is about emigration and internationalism, very different topics indeed, and their juxtaposition is questionable. Regarding emigration, the section on Miami is expressively written, but surprisingly nothing is said about Cubans emigrating elsewhere (e.g., Spain, South America). Indeed, after reading this chapter the reader unfamiliar with Cuba would believe that Cubans have emigrated only to Miami. In relation to internationalism, the section on black internationalism is a significant and impressive contribution to discussion of the topic. Chapter 5 deals with art and culture in revolutionary Cuba. It contains very useful reviews of Cuban literature, dance, film industry, sport, food, and music (although there is no mention of the hugely popular Los Van Van). It also contains an interesting section on political culture (in particular the discussion of the concept of democracy and multiparty systems), which would be better placed within another chapter instead.Chapter 6 is on diversity within Cuban society, touching on race, gender, sexuality, and religion. The treatment of race inequality will be particularly illuminating for those unfamiliar with the subject, given its huge complexity. As highlighted by Chomsky, despite the commitment of the revolutionary government to eliminating racial discrimination, even after over 50 years of revolution this issue still remains a challenge on many fronts. Likewise, the revolution’s repression of Cuban homosexuals is also well handled by Chomsky.Chapter 7 deals with the so-called Special Period, the time of harsh economic conditions after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s and the subsequent reforms introduced in Cuba to cope with these difficulties. The section on the increasing inequalities during this period is particularly striking. This is the most fascinating chapter of the book. Finally, the last chapter of the book takes the history of Cuba into the twenty-first century.A few minor issues could usefully be rectified in a second edition. At times the text is overly centered on the United States. Chomsky draws many comparisons between Cuba and the United States (which will doubtless be welcomed by US undergraduate students), but it would be more useful to compare Cuba with other Latin American countries as well.Having lived in Cuba myself for over 15 years, I also missed a more extensive treatment of these topics: abortion in Cuba; wages differences and income inequality before 1990; statistics about economic development; schools in the countryside; and childhood in Cuba. One figure unexplored (or perhaps avoided) by Chomsky is Fidel Castro himself; a judgment on his character or at least more references to his life, beliefs, and actions would have been welcome. Finally, the section on the Cuban intervention in Africa is perhaps too small given its importance. In future editions the author may wish to call students’ attention to a useful documentary entitled Cuba, an African Odyssey, by Jihan El Tahri (2007).All in all, I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Cuban Revolution and in particular to those teaching at the undergraduate level. I am sure this book will become the standard textbook on the subject for many years to come.

Complementary Tools for Studying the Cold War in Africa

This review of Piero Gleijeses’ monumental historical text, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976, and Jihan El-Tahri’s award-winning documentary, Cuba: An African Odyssey, not only examines the strengths and weaknesses of these powerful complementary texts regarding Cuban internationalism in Africa but also provides pedagogical guidance for their use in teaching about the Cold War in Africa. These texts demonstrate how central Africa was to the history of the period and provide a means for educators to undermine students’ preconceived notions of the power of the West, African insignificance, and the major actors in the Cold War. This review offers suggestions for how instructors might use the two media to stimulate students’ critical thinking about such broad historical and political themes as race and culture, imperialism and anticolonialism, nationalism, revolution, and nation building foundational to the discourse. Additionally, it suggests other resources—books, newspaper articles, and primary documents—that might also be used when examining this tumultuous historical moment.

African Odyssey project – satellite tracking of black storks Ciconia nigra breeding at a migratory divide

The African Odyssey project focuses on studying the migration of the black stork Ciconia nigra breeding at a migratory divide. In 1995–2001, a total of 18 black storks breeding in the Czech Republic were equipped with satellite (PTT) and VHF transmitters. Of them, 11 birds were tracked during at least one migration season and three birds were tracked repeatedly. The birds migrated either across western or eastern Europe to spend the winter in tropical west or east Africa, respectively. One of the juveniles made an intermediate route through Italy where it was shot during the first autumn migration. The mean distance of autumn migration was 6,227 km. The eastern route was significantly longer than the western one (7,000 km and 5,667 km respectively). Important stopover sites were discovered in Africa and Israel. Wintering areas were found from Mauritania and Sierra Leone in the west to Ethiopia and Central African Republic in the east and south. One of the storks migrating by the eastern migration route surprisingly reached western Africa. Birds that arrived early in the wintering areas stayed longer than those arriving later. On the average, birds migrating via the western route spent 37 d on migration compared to 80 d for birds migrating via the eastern route. The mean migration speed in the autumn was 126 km/d and the fastest stork flew 488 km/d when crossing the Sahara. The repeatedly tracked storks showed high winter site fidelity.

The 15th New York African Film Festival

The 15th New York African Film Festival Jim Dingeman (bio) April 9-May 26, 2008 The 15th New York African Film Festival, this year programmed by director Charles Burnett and writer Wole Soyinka, continues to offer a tremendous variety of stimulating films from countries throughout Africa and the African Diaspora. This year's entries heavily focused on themes of African history, past and present. The festival was blessed by the presence of Nobel laureate Soyinka. The year 2007 is the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade, which received little attention in the United States. Soyinka narrates Diane Seligsohn and Richard Rein's The African Slave Trades: Across the Indian Ocean (US, 2007–8), an educational documentary series that reveals the Indian Ocean slave trade emanating from East Africa. The film looks at the Zanj revolt in Iraq in the ninth century. This revolt stemmed from the growth of Iraq's economy during the Abbasid caliphate and the influx of vast numbers of African slaves. They were used to reclaim marshland in the Tigris-Euphrates delta. The revolt was centered on Basra in southern Iraq. This film is complemented by another facet of the slave trade, Gül Büyükbese Muyan's Baa Baa Black Girl (TR, 2007). This focuses on the complexities of the Ottoman slave trade by examining the family of Mustafa Olpak, whose African grandfather, bought as a domestic slave by an Ottoman Turkish family, came to Istanbul as a result of the Kemalist revolution from the island of Crete. For the audiences, the film opens up a vast uncharted realm of how slavery played itself out during the period of the Ottoman Empire. Some films highlighted the crucial role that Cuba played in the wars of African national liberation from the [End Page 138] sixties onward. A remarkable story unfolds in Jack Lewis's Brothers in Arms (SA, 2007). It looks at the life of Ronald Herboldt, the only South African to fight in the Cuban Revolution after jumping ship in 1958. He lived in Cuba for forty years and fought in Angola twice. Given his knowledge of Afrikaans, he used his skills to listen to South African military signals while inside Angola. He returned to South Africa in 1998 and fought and won a pension as a militant involved in the struggle against the apartheid state. Jihan El Tahir's Cuba: An African Odyssey (FR, 2006–7) deals with Cuba's involvement in Africa's guerrilla wars that began with Ché Guevara's illfated efforts in the Congo to nurture continent-wide rebellion. It continues with the vital aid that Fidel Castro sent to Angola in the 1970s to thwart South Africa's and the United States's efforts to shape the geopolitical outcome in sub-Saharan Africa after the collapse of the Portuguese empire. While highly revealing, the film does not cover in depth the shifting of Cuban troops to Ethiopia to fight in the 1977–78 Ogaden War, which would have added more nuance. This conscious absence simplifies the film, but it still remains powerful and illuminating. The same could be said about Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (NA, 2007), directed by Burnett, a departure for the director, better known for his remarkable features To Sleep with Anger (US, 1990) and Killer of Sheep (US, 1977). This film follows the life and times of Samuel Daniel Shafiishuna Nujoma, the first president of Namibia and of the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO). The film is hagiographic in tone, similar to any society's look at key figures in the national mythos (much as Americans regard George Washington). But, in that very process of creating mythos, the film gives us an invaluable wealth of perspectives into the nationalist narrative concerning the Namibian liberation struggle. There was no Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Namibia. Phil Ya Nangoloh of the National Society for Human Rights in Namibia has said that this is because SWAPO—the former liberation movement and now Namibia's ruling party—was also guilty of human rights abuses "in their camps in Angola, Zambia and Tanzania." For South Africa, the brutality of their colonial occupation and counterinsurgency war...

How Musical We Are: John Blacking on Music, Education, and Cultural Understanding

The distinguished music scholar John Blacking (1928-1990) made the study of music in culture and the nature of musical thought and behavior his lifelong quest. Although an anthropologist by training and an ethnomusicologist in his academic output, he produced a vast quantity of publications on the nature of musicality and musical development in the Venda children of northern Transvaal, South Africa. There are multiple purposes of this research, starting with a profile of the professional career of John Blacking, from his musical beginnings in England to his South African Odyssey of fieldwork and teaching of music as a social and cultural force, and finally to his teaching and scholarly contributions as an academic powerhouse and articulate advocate for the education of children in and through music in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. An examination follows to gauge the extent of John Blacking's fieldwork and theoretical views relevant to music, education, and culture, with particular attention to Blackings approach to the study of children as a distinctive musical culture and the nature of their musicality, the central role of physical movement and dance as integrated within the musical experience, and the development of world musics in educational programs.

A South African odyssey in community health: a memoir of the impact of the teachings of Sidney Kark.

A South African odyssey in community health: a memoir of the impact of the teachings of Sidney Kark.

The Master of the Forge: A West African Odyssey

The Master of the Forge: A West African Odyssey

My South African Odyssey

My South African Odyssey

Is Ethnography Possible? A Critique of "African Odyssey"

Two ethnographers--both female, white, and North American--studied "the same" people in East Africa, at almost the same time, and came up with very different results. This uncommon occurrence provides an opportunity to explore possible effects of differing observers on ethnographic results, where initial formulations of problems were not sharply dissimilar. Internal variation among the people studied can explain only part of the divergence in results; different field situations seem to have led the Nyiha to present different behavior to the two observers. It is suggested that much of what Slater describes as "Nyiha culture" may be an accurate account of Nyiha exclusionary maneuvers. Further, the two ethnographers differed in theoretical backgrounds, expectations of field work, biases, and categorization of the people studied.

African Odyssey

African Odyssey

African Odyssey

African Odyssey

By Way of the Sahara: The African Odyssey of Three Men and a Grocers' Van

By Way of the Sahara: The African Odyssey of Three Men and a Grocers' Van