Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters

Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters explores race, racial politics, and racial transformation in the context of Africa’s encounters with non-African communities through various perspectives including oppression, racialization of ethnic difference, and identity deconstruction. While the contributors recognize that ethnicity has long been a staple analytical category of engagements between African and non-African communities, they present a holistic view of the continent and its diaspora through race outside of both colonial and neocolonial binaries, allowing for a more nuanced study of Africa and its diaspora.

The 17 chapters in this volume edited by Bewaji (Univ. of West Indies, Jamaica) and Aguoru (Univ. of Ibadan, Nigeria) converge around the outcomes of Africans’ encounters with and exposures to the Western world. The contributing authors capture the complexities inherent in the persistent existence of “racism, prejudice, discrimination, and stereotype” directed toward Africans by providing creative and divergent interpretations of these encounters. The book takes a three-pronged approach in its aim. First, it spotlights the challenges of race and the effects of hurt generated by racism. Next, it zooms in on ways of rejuvenating the richness of African societies through traditional arts and artists, faith tourism, ethnic values and culture, alternative health remedies, indigenous technologies, new approaches to postcolonial governance, and the protection of women from predators, human traffickers, and obstacles to their inheritance. Finally, the essays share a common thread in proposing that a genuine human society, its dignity and collective progress, could best be achieved if the divergent global communities and their plurality of ideas are harnessed for the sake of creating a truly plural society on a global scale.



Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals.

Choice Reviews
“Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters focuses admirably on the diverse, but pressing, issues that define the contemporary experiences of continental and diaspora Africans: ethnicity, racism, decolonization, racialized aesthetic bodily transformation, indigenous/religious lures, inheritance practices, human-trafficking, sexuality, and social media. In both range and depth, the selections in this book are landmark contributions to the ongoing conversation on black authenticity and the salience of identity formation, destruction, negotiation, deconstruction, and recreation in global Africa.” -- Muyiwa Falaiye, University of Lagos
The interdisciplinary nature of African Studies is becoming increasingly protean, with so many emergent issues yet unresolved. Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters addresses critical issues such as the ‘Other,’ ‘Self,’ the racialization of ethnic differences, and the Identity question that foregrounds exilic experience and Afro-politanism, among others. The expansiveness of the scope of this book coupled with the intellectual rigors of the contributors of the chapters, the temerity of the editors, and the quality of the packaging make the book a compelling read for scholars and students in the social sciences and the humanities. The book is as engaging as it is inspiring. -- Ademola Dasylva, University of Ibadan

John Ayotunde Isola Bewaji is professor of philosophy at the University of the West Indies.



Adedoyin Aguoru is professor of English at the University of Ibadan.

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