Pan-African Identity Research Articles

Africapitalist foundations: the political economy of philanthropy of the super-rich in neoliberal Africa

ABSTRACT “Africapitalist foundations,” founded by iconic African billionaires who profess to integrate profit motive with pan-African identity and also position indigenous businesses as lead-agents in national and regional economic development (“Africapitalism”), emblematize movements to decolonize aid and development in Africa. A content analysis of the market-based and solidaristic philanthropic activities of five such foundations underline recent mutations of neoliberal capitalism that created enormous wealth and large-scale philanthropy for a few but also unleashed profound economic crisis for many Africans. By combining profit and emotion, Africapitalist philanthropy is disrupting several aspects of aid-giving in Africa. Africapitalists are, however, too weak to displace dominant actors in Africa’s aid and development industry; they entrench hegemonic capitalism by not addressing systemic injustices and maldistribution of power and resources that necessitate charity.

Race, Place, and Religion: African American Missionaries in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This paper attempts to provide a more complete analysis of the various conceptions of race and identity held by African American missionaries working in Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While some attention has been paid to African American missionaries working in Africa at this time, little has been written about how their different theological beliefs impacted their conceptions of race and identity as it relates to the local African populations they encountered. It can be determined that there were distinct links between the different theological beliefs held by African American missionaries working in Africa at this time and their conceptions of race. For example, evangelical African American missionaries more often associated themselves with a Pan-African identity than non-evangelical ones. Alongside this, their theological understandings of the Back-to-Africa Movement were quite different depending on where they worked in Africa and it impacted how they viewed themselves in association with the local African populations they encountered. Finally, different conceptions of race and identity manifested themselves along eschatological lines. Although these missionaries’ conceptions of race have already been analyzed, the connection to their theological beliefs and how it influenced their conceptions of race is relatively unexplored.

Forging an African Union Identity: The Power of Experience

Abstract Pan-Africanism and references to a shared African cultural identity have an important function in the way the African Union (AU) seeks to mobilize a sense of belonging among African citizens. However, we know very little about how African citizens, in turn, relate to and identify with the AU and what shapes their sense of belonging as political subjects of the AU. In addressing this lacuna, this article takes a bottom-up perspective on the formation of an AU identity among African citizens, placing citizens’ own sense-making practices about the relevance and value of the AU in their everyday lives center stage. Drawing on focus group discussions among citizens in Burkina Faso and The Gambia, I show that the way research participants relate to the AU is based on and mediated through experiences. Rather than a vague Pan-African identity, what shapes the way citizens relate to the AU are concrete experiences with the organization’s norms and policies and their tangible effects on everyday life, which are conditioned by people’s (different) exposure to AU policies and their positioning within existing social, political, and economic structures. The importance of experience in forging a sense of belonging among African citizens does not preclude the existence of a shared Pan-African identity, but it offers important cues for both how to study the formation of an AU identity and how it can be shaped in the future.

The identity of the constitutional subject and the construction of constitutional identity: lessons from Africa

In this article, I introduce a degree of novelty into the scholarship on the nexus between constitutional identity and the constitutional subject. I do so by pluralizing both the territorial space constitutional identity exists and the constitutional subject it interacts. Drawing from the African Union continental constitutional framework, the Ethiopian national constitutional experience, and the Nigerian subnational constitutional practice, I show how the three-tiered political identity of the constitutional subject – Pan-African, national, and subnational- shapes the construction of constitutional identity at various levels differently. While the Pan-African identity of the constitutional subject assists in imagining a cosmopolitan constitutional identity at the continental level, the sub-national identity of this same constitutional subject supports the establishment of a unique constitutional identity at the national (Ethiopia) and subnational (Nigeria) levels. I demonstrate how the identity of the constitutional subject and its accompanying social and political movements offer a relevant material for the construction of constitutional identity, and how this, in turn, may shape, facilitate, or complicate the practice of constitutionalism in the African context.

Pan-African identity, psychological well-being, and mental health among African Americans

ABSTRACT Studies show that racial and ethnic identity can significantly improve mental health and well-being among marginalized ethnoracial groups who experience racism and discrimination. However, the relationships between Pan-African identity, psychological well-being, and mental health have received less attention. Using a national sample of African American adults, I examine whether Pan-African identity impacts psychological well-being and self-rated mental health. The results show that respondents who feel closer towards members of the African diaspora and Black people in Africa and prefer Pan-African labels have better self-rated mental health and higher levels of self-esteem. Moreover, the analysis finds that respondents who prefer Pan-African labels have higher levels of mastery. Although self-esteem explains the self-rated mental health benefits of both Pan-African closeness and Pan-African label preferences, only mastery explains the relationship between Pan-African label preferences and self-rated mental health. This study demonstrates the possible psychological benefits of a globalized identity for marginalized groups in Eurocentric contexts.

Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa by Brian Valente-Quinn

Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa by Brian Valente-Quinn

Designing New Futures for Design Education

The design community has made several calls to re-imagine a design education for the future. Here I share a series of visual representations of guiding principles for design curricula that respond to these calls. These sketches were created over several years, exploring visually different objectives for design curricula. In doing the drawings, I wrestle with my own urge to break away from the Ulm-inspired design education of my youth. I created these drawings, often inspired by other images, over several years, as I reflected on design curricula inspired by different contexts: the needs of people in the Global South and of the most “vulnerable” countries (as defined by the United Nations); the pedagogical strategies of Freirean-inspired critical and empowering design education; design education methodologies that mean to promote twenty-first-century skills; design education practices inspired by Latin American decolonial scholars; and, finally, the complexities of pan-African identity. The article acknowledges other examples of decolonial design curricula. While none of the sketches is a complete curriculum, each invites other educators to challenge existing design education paradigms and create culturally relevant curricula for learners in their contexts.

3 Stages of a Pan-African Identity Framework for Establishing Self-Sovereign Identity With Blockchain

The African continent (specifically its overwhelming in(animate) resources) is often referred to as the sleeping giant by magazines, blogs, research presentations and articles, and NGOs [such as World Bank]. Reasons for this moniker/title include the continent’s plentiful natural resources, its large and quickly growing young population, and the young population’s quick adoption and acclimatization to technology. Most countries on the continent are known as developing countries due to lack of access to safe drinking water, reliable electricity and roads, sanitation and hygiene, and a high number of people with tropical/infectious diseases. However, due to the usefulness of cellular phones and technology, several countries and companies within them have focused on cell phone proliferation (91% in Kenya). Smart phone usage allows Kenyans access to the world’s information and potentially endless innovation. Given that a large number of Kenyans with smartphones use social media, coupled with the advent of Europe’s GDPR (general data protection regulation), African identity and its associated data became an area of great interest. As the world is quickly progressing into a digital economy, a solution must be created that allows us to regain and control our identities, doing our best to ensure losing such is infinitely close to computationally and probabilistically impossible/improbable. Developing a blockchain-based identity backbone using biometrics and historical family information while allowing government-based identification documents is the best way forward. Three stages have been identified as necessities to accomplish the development of this system before opening it further beyond the pan-African worldwide community. The three stages are defined by systems that allow for biometric/demographic registration (stage 1), interoperability and security hardening (stage 2), and biometric modality data analysis/organization/association (stage 3).

Pan-Africanism and the Affective Charges of the African Union Building in Addis Ababa

ABSTRACT In 2002, the African Union (AU) inaugurated its Chinese-funded, designed, built, and furnished headquarters building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, receiving the admiration of African leaders. The building was hailed as a new material expression of pan-African unity. This article explores the affective potency of the AU built environment to unsettle and unfurl conceptions of pan-African identity. Beginning with an analysis of sensory impressions of the outer appearance and architectural forms of the built space, the article meanders through its inner structures to describe how these assemble affective intensities around the notion of pan-Africanism. In particular, it concentrates on the experiences of Addis Ababa residents and AU officials who express divergent sentiments and visions of pan-Africanism. It argues that affective reactions associated with sensorial encounters with built forms, mediated by pre-existing discourses, reveal the divergent modes of belonging to pan-Africanism. The affective potency of the AU is of acute interest because of its presumed role as a mediator in nationalist conflicts, not least those currently underway in Ethiopia itself.

“LookingForwardAlways toAfrica”:William George Emanuel and the Politics of Repatriation in Cuba, 1894–1906

AbstractThis article examines a back-to-Africa movement from early twentieth-century Cuba. The leader, William George Emanuel, arrived in Cuba from Antigua in 1894, and over the next several years, he worked to unite thecabildos de naciónandsociedades de coloron the island. After independence in 1898, Emanuel and his followers rejected Cuban citizenship and began petitioning Britain, the United States, Belgium, and the Gold Coast for land grants in West and Central Africa. Each petition, however, told a different story. Emanuel skillfully tailored his appeals according to his audience, variously claiming that he and his followers were “British,” “African,” “Congolese,” or “Mina,” among other identities. Anticipating the rise of Marcus Garvey by over a decade, Emanuel's campaign reveals an overlooked pan-Africanist strand in the typical narrative for this period of Cuban history. Drawing mainly on the petitions themselves, the article analyzes how Emanuel blended the languages of empire, nation, race, and ethnicity to create a dynamic pan-African identity. More generally, the article demonstrates how marginalized groups have long negotiated the boundaries of identity in the pursuit of belonging.

Decolonizing the Mind Through Song

For post-colonial African musicians, decolonization became an imperative. Singing in one’s native language was not creative expression alone, but also a reclamation of indigenous culture and identity. In Decolonising the Mind, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o makes a case for African literature to be written in African languages. He also points out that singers and musicians have resisted mental colonization by retaining indigenous musical practices while promoting innovation: ‘These singers pushed the languages to new limits, renewing and reinvigorating them by coining new words and new expressions, and in generally expanding their capacity to incorporate new happenings in Africa and the world’ (1986:23). This article explores emphasis on African languages by African musicians as a form of agenda setting in communication as theorized by Scheufele (2000), focusing on the performance practices of ‘Mama Africa’ Miriam Makeba (1932-2008) and more recent artists influenced by Makeba. By making introductions to her songs and explaining the Xhosa culture in the context of Apartheid, Makeba primes her audience to hear the lyrics she sings as formed from intelligible language instead of alliterative nonsense. For many African singers since, singing in one’s native language (and other African languages) has become an intentional act of decolonisation and a recognizable signifier of pan-African identity for African audiences. This article studies performance choices, including singing in Xhosa and Zulu, and their significant impact on future musicians, the robustness of African languages and cultural identity formation.

“The Clave Comes Home”: Salsa Dance and Pan-African Identity in Ghana

Abstract:While salsa dance is popularly, and now globally, understood to be a symbol and expression of Latin identity, its adoption in non-Latin contexts has produced new meanings and cultural configurations. This is particularly the case in West Africa, where salsa is not only catching on among urban youth, but is becoming understood and approached from an African perspective. This article explores the ways in which salsa dance in Ghana serves as an innovative, embodied expression of a contemporary, pan-African identity. This is seen in Ghanaian dancers’ ideological reinvigoration of salsa’s African history and in the physical incorporation of local styles and presentations. Salsa in Ghana is recast through global networks, which in turn contributes to its global character while refashioning it to better suit local motives and desires. Thus, rather than emphasizing salsa’s African roots alone, dancers in Ghana equally engage with the complexroutesof the dance.

African pride and vexation in World Cup development sportswriting

The first men's football World Cup in Africa, in 2010, provided an opportunity for development sportswriting. As mediator of sport for the people, mass media are well positioned to capitalize upon the development potential of football. This research analyzed development-related World Cup coverage to better understand African perceptions of identity and the role of African media in improving the quality of human life. Using a news database, this research compiled and analyzed stories published in Africa, outside South Africa, during the World Cup. Stories were tested for a World Cup peg and possible development angle and flagged for representations of national or pan-African identity. The research led to three conclusions. First, the World Cup did provide a vehicle for development sportswriting. Second, World Cup development sportswriting fortified national and pan-African identity by representing expressions of pride. Third, World Cup development sportswriting provided a vehicle to demand political accountability and to express vexation at impediments to African development. The research provides an informative context and springboard for further inquiry into the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

South Africa in Africa: a geo-political perspective

This paper explores – through a geo-political perspective – the changes and continuities in South African foreign policy over the period 1990–2010, focusing on the themes of military relations, migration, democratization, and pan-Africanism. The demise of apartheid led to significant changes in South Africa's relations with southern Africa and the rest of Africa, including: transition of South Africa from pariah state to a key leader of the continent; an end to South Africa's destabilization of its immediate neighbours; transition toward more humane treatment of migrants; and transition toward a commitment to democracy promotion in Africa. Yet, continuities among the apartheid and post-apartheid eras persist, including: the persistence of nationalism and realism as guiding principles; ongoing economic and political constraints imposed by neighbouring countries; the persistence of socio-cultural divisions amongst South African and migrant workers; and overall ambivalence about pan-African identity and policies.

Challenging a Pan-African Identity: The Autobiographical Writings of Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, and Caryl Phillips

In her 1986 book All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, Maya Angelou reflected on the meaning of identity among the people of the African diaspora. A rich and highly reflective memoir, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes recounted the author's experiences, relationships, and quest for a sense of individual and collective belonging throughout the African diaspora. At the core of Angelou's quest for individual and collective identity lay Africa, a continent whose geography and history loomed large in her very personal story, and in her efforts to create a sense of “kinship” among people of African descent throughout the world. Starting with Maya Angelou's All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, this essay considers the significance of “Africa” as a geographical site, political space, and constantly reimagined history in the formation of black identity in the travel writings of black diaspora authors since the 1980s. I compare Angelou's work with that of the Hawaiian-born President of the United States Barack Obama, whose Dreams from My Father (1995) offered personal self-reflections and critiques of the African diaspora from a Pacific world perspective. In Obama's rendering of African diasporic identity, Africa has become “an idea more than an actual place.” Half a decade later, and half a world away, the Caribbean-born Afro-Britain Caryl Phillips published The Atlantic Sound (2000), an account of African diasporic identity that moved between understanding, compassion, and a harsh belief that Africa cannot take on the role of a psychologist's couch, that “Africa cannot cure.” These three memoirs offer insight into the complex and highly contested nature of identity throughout the African diaspora, and present very personalized reflections on the geography, politics, and history of Africa as a source of identity and diasporic belonging. Taken together, these three personal narratives represent a challenge to the utility of a transnational black identity that Paul Gilroy suggested in his landmark book The Black Atlantic.

Cosmopolitanism in Georgia Douglas Johnson's Anti-Lynching Literature

In December 1874, African Methodist Episcopal Church changed design on front page of its major publication, Christian Recorder. new banner featured an image of continent of Africa, apparently emphasizing American church members' sense of connection to Africa. While caption Ethiopia Shall Soon Stretch Out Her Hands to God (1) possibly reflected church's missionary ideals rather than a sense of Pan-African identity, it initiates a series of literary and journalistic moves that ushered continent of Africa into national imagination without invoking its status as dark continent. (2) In an era when dominant cultural references to Africa would ingrain (in minds of white Americans), fixed notions of savagery, heathens, and evil, several African American writers sought to disrupt discourse of primitivism, civilization, and racial supremacy by embracing an imagined African past in various ways. (3) significance of symbol at center of Christian Recorder banner more reflects black Americans' status as participants in building of a modern republic than their accurate ideas about geographical space that was Africa itself. In a letter to Recorder's editor dated March 22, 1877, B. A. Imes argued that the notion that a people just out of bondage, with all results of its degradation clinging to them, should better their condition by migrating to its shore is preposterous. Like most middle-class African Americans, Imes demanded that America be transformed to accommodate blacks: The genius of its own institutions our birthright and unrequited toil, entitle us to a home. Nineteenth-century black intellectuals argued that Africa had much to offer US, and perhaps too much to offer its African American citizens. In work of prolific author and activist Frances Harper, for example, references to African ancestry most frequently fall under category of a phrase that does not overtly reject discourses of African cultural inferiority. Harper, like her activist sister of next generation Ida B. Wells, subtly clarifies and inverts meaning of to illustrate that after white Americans cursed Africans with slavery, they cursed them further with racial terrorism in form of lynching. Pauline Hopkins, novelist and editor of Colored American Magazine, argues for cultural syncretism and recognition of African contributions to modern culture and civilization; neither she nor Harper advocated black nationalism in its back-to-Africa incarnation. Their white-looking black heroines, usually octoroons with one-eighth black and seven-eighths white blood, symbolize an African cultural presence in American body politic. Saidiya Hartman has observed that development of a racist social structure in early 1900s revolves largely around demarcation of black body as alien and dangerous to patriarchal order that would govern an increasingly imperialist and masculinist United States national identity. Hartman suggests that the placement and proximity of blacks among, amidst, and within greater body of Americans and in perception of a discernible 'us' encroached upon by black intruders identified 'Negro problem' with question of social, thereby involving matters of intimacy, association, and (165). intimacy and need implied in interracial relationship that spawned so-called octoroon children also signified an interdependence between US and African cultures. Practitioners of progressive philosophy, such as Jane Addams, envisioned a cosmopolitan civilization. Eric Kaufman enumerates four goals of progressive cosmopolitanism: (1) to oppose Anglo-conformist modes of assimilation, (2) to celebrate cultural diversity of United States, (3) to endorse inter-ethnic contact and hybridity, and simultaneously (4) to eschew maintenance of diverse ethnic communities (1089). …

Pan-Africanism: An idea whose time has come

The article argues for relaunching the debate on Pan-African unity to recapture the lost ground and make good the opportunity cost incurred by Africa in choosing the minimalist aims of settling for fragile and weak states with an equally enfeebled Organisation of African Unity. The construction of a Pan-African identity through the development of a shared goal and social and historical experience of struggling to lifting up Africa from its untenable status as a marginal, oppressed and largely written-off continent is a timely undertaking as an alternative to ethnic involution, social decay and fragmentation.

Toward a Pan-African Identity: Diaspora African Repatriates in Ghana

Le mouvement du 20 eme siecle des Africains de la diaspora en Afrique est une reponse centripede de la diaspora des esclaves africains. Les Afro-americains et les populations de descendance africaine issues des Caraibes et de l'Amerique du Sud ont migre vers l'Afrique depuis le 18 eme siecle. L'A. etudie le processus de la formation identitaire des Africains de la diaspora contemporaine qui se sont installes au Ghana lors des quarante dernieres annees. Il montre la complexite des identites transnationales et formule une vue holistique des experiences pan-africaines. Bien que les experiences des informateurs varient en fonction de la classe, du sexe et d'autres criteres, la majorite a exprime une forte allegeance envers leur identite nationale (lieux ou ils sont nes) ainsi qu'un sens d'« appartenance » a une communaute africaine plus large