In 2010, for the first time since 1895, the Argentine census asked those living within its national territory if they were of African descent. While the inclusion of this question followed broader regional shifts to integrate questions on race and ethnicity into national censuses, this historic disjuncture is most astounding in Argentina. No country in Latin America has more successfully constructed itself as a nation donde no hay negros, where there are no blacks, than Argentina. Through a frame analysis of digital texts produced in Argentina between 2010 and 2012 regarding the new census question, this Master's thesis uncovers how government, media and Afro organizational actors understood the meaning of Afrodescendant and the purposes of the census question. As such, this research seeks to expand research on the African diaspora in the Americas by analyzing how racial politics of identification work in a nation-state of hegemonic whiteness. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2004. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-239). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Orientador: Rubens Pereira dos Santos / Banca: Fabiana Miraz de Freitas Grecco / Banca: Altamir Botoso / Resumo: Manuel Lopes (1907-2005), um dos fundadores da revista Claridade, periódico fruto do movimento intelectual de mesmo nome que objetivou valorizar a identidade cabo-verdiana, escreveu Chuva Braba, romance publicado em 1956 e que traduz o sentimento bipartido do homem cabo-verdiano, qual seja, o apego telúrico à sua terra marcada pela estiagem e a necessidade de buscar melhores condições de vida fora do arquipélago. Pretende-se, neste trabalho, analisar a presença dos ideais do movimento Claridade (valorização da terra natal, bem como da língua e da cultura cabo-verdiana) na obra em questão, considerando-se o contexto histórico e social do arquipélago quando da escrita do romance. Uma vez que Lopes considerava-se um observador atento da realidade circundante, busca-se examinar como o dilema partir-ficar cabo-verdiano, representado pela personagem principal Mané Quim, é abordado sob a ótica da geração de Claridade. Este fazer literário, portador de um novo padrão estético e ideológico, direciona-se ao contexto das ilhas não se omitindo acerca de seus problemas econômicos, sociais e políticos, mas assumindo uma postura profundamente telúrica sobre elas, com o objetivo de restaurar a esperança de seu povo e de firmar uma nova identidade nacional / Abstract: Manuel Lopes (1907-2005), one of the founders of the Claridade magazine, a periodical fruit of the intellectual movement of the same name that aimed to enhance the Capeverdian identity, wrote Chuva Braba, a novel published in 1956 and which expresses the bipartite sentiment of Capeverdian man, that is, the telluric attachment to his land marked by the drought and the necessity to seek better living conditions outside the archipelago. It is intended, in this work, to analyze the presence of the ideals of the Claridade movement (valorization of the native land, as well as the Capeverdian language and culture) in the work in question, considering the archipelago's historical and social context when writing the novel. Since Lopes considered himself as an attentive observer of the surrounding reality, it seeks to examine how the Capeverdian leave-stay dilemma, represented by the main character Mané Quim, is treated from the point of view of the generation of Claridade. This literary achievement, bearer of a new esthetic and ideological pattern, is directed to the context of the islands, not omitting about the economic, social and political problems, but assuming a position profoundly telluric about them, with the aim of restoring hope of its people and to establish a new national identity / Mestre

The Lucumi religion was born in Cuba from African and European religious systems. The enslaved Yoruba were brought to the New World through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They were taken from their homes, family, language, and religion and brought to countries like Cuba to provide free labor to growing agricultural markets that benefited European colonizers of the Americas. The Yoruba would hold on to their religion, but in order to keep it alive, they would have to make it into a new religion. This new religion would become the religion known as Lucumi. In Cuba, Lucumi practitioners would hide their religion beneath the facade of Catholicism. The orishas were associated with Catholic saints with similar attributes. The orisha Chango, who governs war and presides over lightning, became associated with Saint Barbara who is the patron saint of artillerymen and is linked to lightning. The Yoruba could be seen praying to a saint but were actually praying to an orisha. This practice became ingrained as a part of Lucumi tradition. Divination and propitiation are at the center of the Lucumi religion. Divination determines the course of a practitioner's life and can reveal whether practitioners are in a good or bad position in their lives. Propitiation will ensure that good fortune will remain or that bad omens will disappear.

This fiction novel focuses on the Sankofa philosophy that we as human beings must learn from our past to better understand our current existence and future; however, sometimes we choose to ignore or suppress the past because remembering it may be too hurtful. When we forget what happened yesterday our outlook on today and tomorrow becomes distorted. Contact is a novel that attempts to explore how 'living in the now' alone becomes problematic because the past'if not remembered'will come back to haunt you. The erasure of the line between Diasporic Africans and their African past is the primary theme explored. The writer deconstructs how living in the now is indeed living in the past because the past and present, in the life of Tufa, become one. Reincarnation serves as the vehicle to explore this theme. Tufa, known for her aberrant behavior, is the reincarnation Afua Ataa - an Ashanti woman who survived the Maafa, or Transatlantic Slave Trade. Past love, hate, dishonor, rivalry, pain, and hope complicate the 'ordinariness' of Tufa's teenage life. The novel is divided into a prologue and eight chapters. The bulk of each chapter follows Tufa's current life and ends with a vignette told by five African women, one being Afua Ataa. Each vignette paints in broad strokes the landscape and historical moments of the Maafa. The present becomes complicated when traces of the Maafa seep into Tufa's life. Some of these traces are culturally specific rather than unique to Tufa. However, other traces are uniquely shaped by Tufa's former life. People from her past disrupt her current life by their presence. Their disruption takes many forms'some of it brings pain and some of it brings joy. By reading Tufa's story, others may find the strength to confront their past when it makes contact with their present. Like Tufa, we must confront the pain in our past to experience its joy.

The dissertation explores new understandings about the uses of emotional work in the social struggles of racialized people. This project is a case study that analyzes how a singing group of ageing black women organized to improve the mental wellness of women in a low-income, peripheral neighborhood of the city of Belo Horizonte. This grassroots effort was a response to the women’s use of anti-anxiety medication, specifically Valium, and an attempt to attend to the women’s ongoing issues not addressed through the use of pharmaceuticals. The dissertation examines these women’s self-making as a critical window into how the embodied experiences of the interlocking forces of race, class, gender, age and place of residence are lived in the demanding material and psychological conditions of these women’s lives and the nature of the group’s healing work in their life narratives. Through considering these women’s self-making in discourses of madness, geographic landscapes of memory, musicality and performance, the dissertation investigates how the psycho-emotional transformations of these women illuminate the types of therapeutic work beneficial to anti-racist, sexist and age diversified modes of being and collective mobilization in the current social context of Brazil’s re-democratization. It also considers the group’s re-conceptualization of blackness and mental wellness as exemplary of and contributing to the personal and social work of black women’s struggle and praxis. The research methodology includes participant observation, interviews (structured and un-structured), oral histories, documentary photography and archival research conducted during an extended period (sixteen months) of fieldwork in Brazil. / text

This report examines diasporic dialogues in Black concert dance focusing on dialogues between Brazil and the United States and analyzes how racial politics and cultural exchanges contributed to shape a Black aesthetic in Brazil. Since the beginning of the 20th century, both the presence/passage of US Black dancers/choreographers in Brazil and the presence/passage of Brazilian Black dancers/choreographers in the United States enabled the formation of socio-political networks among artists and cultural cross-fertilization between these countries. Katherine Dunham’s visit in Brazil and Mercedes Batista’s visit in the United States during the 1950s were formative of a Brazilian black concert dance and had left a lasting imprint in black modern dance in the U.S. as well. This report attempts a close reading of the dialogues between Dunham and Batista that shaped the dance techniques and repertoire that make up black modern and postmodern dance in the African diaspora. / text

The politics of the Middle-Passage and its attendant socio-cultural and historical trauma is the starting point of this study. The dispersal of Africans, or at least people of African origin, to different parts of the world has produced over the past few decades numerous dissertations and theses describing socio-cultural linkages between Africa and the Black diaspora. On the part of creative writers and literary critics of every persuasion, there exists a consensus of creative and critical opinion that seeks to establish that "the history of Africa and the Africans ... is one of iron, blood and tears." (Nkosi, 1981, p.30) The study is in agreement with Omafume Onoge's submission that the cultural imperialist process went beyond mere acts of vandalism to produce a period in the history of Africa and the black diaspora in which "many educated Africans (and their counterparts in the diaspora) required a major act of intellection to ascribe aesthetic value to our traditional arts." (Dnoge, 1984, p.5) The study grapples with the source(s) of this socio-cultural apathy, and how the liberal humanist discourse which replaced the body of the colonialist's mythologies is predicated on what JanMohammed describes as "an ironic anomaly." (JanMohammed, 1985, p.281) My exploration of this ironic anomaly begins from the premise of the myths, legends and traditions that are subsumed, truncated, misread or simply repressed to propound this 'humanist' philosophy. What emerges from this cultural and ideological exploration is a vernacular theory of reading built around the carnivalesque figure of Esu Elegbara (the Yoruba 'trickster' god) whose "functional equivalent in Afro-American profane discourse is the Signifying Monkey." (Gates, 1990, p.287) The study is in two parts. Part One consists of three chapters exploring different aspects of the cultural and ideological discourses between Africa and the black diaspora from historical and theoretical perspectives. Part Two focuses, in four chapters, on the works of five writers from Africa (Nigeria and Ghana), South America (Brazil), the West Indies (St. Lucia) and the United States. These are Ayi Kwei Armah, Wole Soyinka, Jorge Amado, Derek Walcott and Amiri Baraka respectively. The conclusion summarises the major arguments of the thesis.

Thesis (M.A.(International Relations))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2016. / Today, it is estimated that annually, 70,000 skilled Africans depart their nations of origin to pursue professional and educational opportunities abroad. Many leaders, policymakers and developmental practitioners believe that this steady stream of emigrants—commonly referred to as brain drain—has a substantial impact on the ability of African nations to develop. As such, brain drain is rapidly becoming one of the most salient issues on the African development agenda. Conventional wisdom had it that once nations improved their political, economic and social conditions, brain drain would abate. Yet, some countries, which have succeededin advancing socio-economic reforms and political freedoms, are seeing an increase in skilled emigration. The West African nation of Ghana is one nation that is experiencing this problem, to the detriment of key areas such as education and healthcare. In an effort to curtail the impact of brain drain on development, several entities have undertaken initiatives to mitigate the effects of the phenomenon.This research will assess efforts to ameliorate the effects of brain drain in Ghana. Specifically, it examinestwo programs facilitated by the International Organization for Migration—the Return of Qualified African Nationals initiative and Migration for Development in Africa—as well as interventions by the Republic of Ghana. The purpose of the study is to better understand the objectives of these brain gain initiatives, how the programs are facilitated and their impact in order to extrapolate lessons that can assist future actors in formulating more effective measures to combat brain drain. / GR2017

Migration is a major global issue of the 21st century (Martin & Widgren, 2002) [...] In recent years there has been an upsurge of African Diaspora returning home (Thomas, 2008). Notwithstanding anecdotal and editorial coverage, very little academic research exists on international migration to Africa (Ammassari, 2006). The focus of migration studies related to Africa has largely centred on outward migration and measures of the extent and cost benefits of the drain or gain and the ensuing debate on macro policy implications (Heenan, 2005). This research offers a new perspective on migration by exploring reasons and deeper motivations behind why African Diaspora mid-career professionals migrate to Africa, specifically South Africa and Nigeria. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version] / MT2016