African Americans in the United States and African Studies

Author(s): Lisa Asili Aubrey

Source: African Issues, Vol. 30, No. 2, Identifying New Directions for African Studies (2002),
pp. 19-23
Published by: African Studies Association
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African Americans in the United States and African Studies
Lisa Asili
Aubrey
Current Paths
That there is a
strong
historical intellectual
tradition
of Afri-
can Americans
studying
Africa is news to some. That there re-
mains a demand
among
African Americans in the United States
to
study
Africa is also a
surprise.
That these ideas are
challenging
to some is ludicrous to others. For
many
African Americans in
African
studies, affirming
our
engagement
with Africa over and
over is not
only
a nuisance but also a waste of
precious
time and
intellectual
energy.
After countless
efforts, many
African Ameri-
cans have
simply disengaged, refusing
to have these futile con-
versations. Others bear witness in
perpetuity
to the defense of
Black
nationality
and
global
Pan-Africanism for
themselves,
the
race,
and the
enlightenment
of disbelievers. Both
groups
act with
calculated
rationality, yet
denials of African Americans' interest
in, engagement with,
and effect on African studies abound. The
denial within the
community
of scholars comes
mostly
from
White Americans but also from continental Africans and other
African Americans.
The
primary
reason for the varied
interpretations
of Afri-
can Americans' interest in African studies is that African
studies in U.S. universities remains a contested terrain. Those
who control this terrain have the
power
to define Africa
geo-
graphically, ontologically, epistemologically,
and
ideologi-
cally. They
can and do decide who in U.S. academia is in and
who is out of
Africa, figuratively
and
literally. Likewise,
directors of African studies
programs
that receive
major
fund-
ing
from
private
foundations and the U.S.
government, par-
ticularly
the Title VI
centers,
have the
power
to influence
who
plays
on this contested terrain. In the short
run,
directors
have substantial influence over "who
gets what, when, how,
how
much,
under what
circumstances,
and at what
costs,"
especially
with
regard
to student recruitment and selection for
postgraduate training
in African studies.
It is no wonder that some directors of African studies
programs
remain in the
high
seat
seemingly indefinitely.
Tenures of some African studies directors rival the tenures of
some
tersely castigated
African
government autocrats, along
with their authoritarian
leadership styles,
albeit with the
ap-
pearance
of benevolence to some and
simply
backhandedness
to others.
Ironically,
the
pejoratives
leveled at African dicta-
tors
by
African studies
experts
are
rarely publicly
used to
describe
long-seated
African studies "old
boys."
Some of
these old
boys
are not
officially directors; yet informally, they
are institutions with
gate-keeping prerogatives
in African
studies, creating
and
enforcing
their rules of the
game.
The debate around what constitutes African studies is not
just
a
question
of who controls the field but also of definitional
issues such as "What is Africa?" and "Who are Africans?"
While White Africanists are more
likely
to define Africa
by
its
continental
boundaries,
and
many
still
by
its sub-Saharan de-
lineation,
more African American Africanists define Africa as
the continent and its
diaspora. By contrast,
continental Africans
appear
divided. Some
strategically apply
the continental defini-
tion of African
studies,
while others have a more
expansive
and
inclusive definition of Africa that
parallels
that of African
American Africanists. This latter
group
of continental Africans
is the
progeny
of elder Pan-Africanist scholars and leaders. The
voices of this
group
are
rising
in
pitch,
in
scholarship
and activ-
ism,
as neoliberal
policies
have derailed African communities
all over the world with structural
adjustment programs
in Af-
rica and with cutbacks in social welfare and affirmative action
in the West. This
global derailment,
viewed as Africa's mar-
ginalization
from a Euramerican
center,
further entrenches the
underdevelopment
of Africans.
For some White Africanists in the United
States, defining
African studies as
engaging only
the continent or the south of
the Sahara
strategically
excludes
Egypt
and
negates
the
global
African
diaspora.
This definition also
positions
White Afri-
canists at the
apex
of the U.S. racial academic
hierarchy
as
delineators of others'
identities, histories,
and realities. Defin-
ing
African studies this
way
validates and reinforces
interpre-
tive
inquiry
that is
European-
and American-centered. At the
same
time,
we see the work of scholars from Africa under-
mined and
dismissed,
sometimes as "mere" folklore. Far
greater damage
is done as the
body
of
inquiry
of White Afri-
canists becomes revered as the
product
of the
highest
level of
knowledge, meeting
universal
objective
scientific standards
to be
globally disseminated,
consumed and used as the stan-
dard
against
which all others are measured.
Choosing
to deal
with
geographical
and not cultural, on-
tological, global Africa, some White Africanists
selectively
deal with Black folks of their
choosing
and at a distance.
More
specifically, they
deal with continental Africans on re-
Lisa Asili
Aubrey
is associate
professor of political
science
and
African
studies at Ohio
University.
She is the author
of
The Politics of
Development Cooperation: NGOs,
Gender
and
Partnership
in
Kenya
and articles on
gender, develop-
ment, democratization, and
Pan-Africanism.
She was a Ful-
bright
scholar at the
University of Ghana,
Legon, from
1998
to 2000. She is now
working
on
manuscripts
on Ghana,
Kenya,
and the
African diaspora.
The author
may
be con-
tacted at
aubrey@ohio.edu.
VOLUME XXX/2 2002 19
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search
trips,
continental African
colleagues,
students at White
institutions,
and
few,
if
any,
African Americans.
Many
never
question
the
raging
race
disparities
at their institutions-
especially
those between the White and Black communities
and,
at
many institutions,
the miniscule and
declining
African
American
faculty
and student
populations. Many
continental
Africans remain
perplexed
about
why
these
types
of
questions
are
important
to African
Americans,
until
they begin
to see
themselves as Blacks and
experience
the racial
politics
of
everyday
life in the United States.
Many
African Americans wonder
why
a
substantially
large
and
highly
noticeable number of White Africanists find
it effortless and
rewarding
on their side to interact with conti-
nental Africans when it is
painstaking
for them to interact
with African Americans who are their fellow American citi-
zens and the
legacy
of Africa. Is it because with continental
Africans,
White Africanists
rarely
have to broach the
open
wounds of chattel
slavery;
historical and structural
racism;
the
ever-increasing
racial
inequality
in all
aspects
of
life,
includ-
ing education, widening
economic and racial
injustice,
racial
profiling, reparations,
and White dominance of African stud-
ies?
Yet,
with African
Americans,
these issues are
always
part
of the
unspoken
subtext.
Perhaps
the
relationship
be-
tween White American Africanists and African Americans is
too
tense,
the
power
and
privilege
differentials too
obvious,
and White control too tenuous and
precarious.
Is it
perhaps
a
bit uncomfortable for a White
person
in African studies to be
face-to-face with African
Americans, given
this
country's
racist
past
and
present,
which continues to
marginalize
Afri-
can Americans? Is it uncomfortable in a
way
that it is not
with continental Africans and other White Americans? Are
African Americans too
demanding
of their
rights
as citizens
under the rule of
law, making
them not deferential
enough
for
some? Are these the reasons
why
little effort is made to re-
cruit African Americans into African studies
programs?
Per-
haps
it is too difficult to
get
African
Americans, especially
the
young,
to tow the mainstream and
respect
the
powers
that
be. That African Americans are not interested in African stud-
ies is
historically
and
factually
inaccurate.
Despite
the
hoopla
about multiculturalism in U.S.
universities, many predomi-
nantly
White
universities,
where the
major
African studies
programs
are
housed, are,
at the
very least, neglected pro-
grams
that
may bring
about
greater diversity.
So African stud-
ies remains fundamentally White, a microcosm of the
larger
racial academe.
For African Americans in African studies, the
tendency
is strong to define Africa as the continent and the
diaspora
together, inextricably linking Africans by continent of
origin,
color, and condition. This
position
has both inherent
primor-
dial bases and
acquired situational bases.
Ethnicity, race, and
culture, dynamically adapted over time and across
space
from
a common source, create a
unifying identity, where historical
and
contemporary
racist
underdevelopment forged by
slave
trades,
internal and external
colonialism, neocolonialisms,
and
globalization
have been
catalysts
of the vast African di-
aspora. Many
African Americans see themselves as
bridges
linking
transnational communities of Africans between the
continent and the United
States,
not
completely altruistically.
These
bridges
allow
prodigal
sons and
daughters
to
go
back
to their ancestral homes
intellectually, psychically, spiritually,
financially,
and sometimes
physically.
For the
many
treated
as second-class citizens and
refugees
without effective
equal
citizenship
and contractual
rights
in the land of their
birth,
these
relationships
anchor individuals
by providing strength
from the collective.
W.E.B. Du Bois
encapsulated
all these identities. Du Bois
is noted as the African American intellectual who
began
a
strong
tradition of African American
scholarly
interest in Af-
rica with his 1896 dissertation
'The Suppression
of the African
Slave Trade." In this
work,
he was
unrelentingly pro-Africa
and
pro-human rights.
For
many
of
us,
Du Bois is the father of
global
African
studies, playing
a central role in
organizing
five
Pan-African conferences that
brought together
Africans from
all over the world between 1919 and 1945.
Yet,
it must be
noted that other Africans from the
diaspora engaged
Africa as
scholars and activists before Du Bois.
Among
them are Martin
Delany,
Robert
Campbell (from Jamaica),
and the Reverend
Henry Highland Garnett.1 Many clergy
and
journalists
were
among
the ranks of those
writing
about
Africa,
even document-
ing
African American
perspectives
toward the
European parti-
tioning
of Africa in
1884-1885,2 more
than a decade before Du
Bois earned his doctorate. Du
Bois, along
with his
wife, Shirley
Graham Du
Bois,
served as a
bridge
between the
diaspora
and
Africa when
they
moved from the United States to Ghana in
1961 at the invitation of
Osagyefo
Kwame Nkrumah.
Disillu-
sioned
by
American racism and
political harassment,
Du Bois
denounced his U.S.
citizenship
and assumed Ghanaian citizen-
ship.
Africans worldwide memorialize Du Bois at the W.E.B.
Du Bois Memorial Center for Pan-African Culture in
Accra,
Ghana. Various directors of the center have come from the
continent and the
diaspora.
African Americans in the United States have a
complex
identity,
one that is made more
perplexing by
its
duality-
they
are African
by ethnicity
and American
by
birth and citi-
zenship.
Situational
propositions, personal aspirations,
and
realistic calculations often
prompt
African Americans in Af-
rican studies to choose or, perhaps
more
appropriately,
to
yield
to our "American-ness." We
yield
when what is at stake
is
deeper entr6e
into the White world of African studies, ma-
jor grants
for individual or institutional research, or seats
within powerful policy- and decision-making bodies. The
bottom line is that our
presence
and voices will help Africa,
and in
helping Africa, we
help
ourselves. Moreover, as
Americans, as descendents of enslaved Africans, who con-
20 AFRICAN ISSUES
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tributed not
only
with labor but also with
blood, sweat, tears,
and life to
building
this
country3
and who
fought
to be re-
garded
as human and to be
recognized
as
citizens,
we deserve
that
entree, perhaps
most after Native Americans. The
Bamana
proverb
Do ni don koma4
accurately
describes the
situation in which
many
African Americans with
strong
intel-
lectual and activist identification with continental Africa find
themselves. In the United
States,
we must
constantly negotiate
a
relational environment in which we
deny
our
ontological
selves.
There is little chance to win in this
environment,
so we
perform
damage
control and are
grateful
to
merely
survive. We detest the
beast.
Yet,
we are sometimes
part
of
it, living
in its
belly.
And
some of us
grow
fat from the
beast, always wary
of its violent
reactions. Do ni don koma means
"If
you
dance
backward, your
father
dies;
if
you
dance
forward, your
mother
dies;
if
you
don't
dance, you
die."
African Americans in African studies are a self-selected
group. Hence,
we
likely
do not
represent
the
diversity
of
opinions
of the
larger population
of African Americans.
Among
the
larger group
are African Americans who
prioritize
their
American-ness,
over their African-ness. Some do not
acknowledge
their African-ness. Some detest their African-
ness, especially
when
they
have internalized Euramerican
ideologies. Moreover,
de-Africanization has
recognizable
and
long-term psychological
effects.
Improper
education about
Africa and African Americans also contributes to our curious
subjective positioning
in this
society
vis-a-vis
Africa. The
psychology
of learned Black self-hatred in a Eurocentric and
America-centric world cannot be dismissed in
any genuine
attempt
to understand Black
people's relationships
with Af-
rica and with themselves.
For continental
Africans,
a continental definition of Af-
rica is rational.
Many
continental Africans want African
Americans to be more American than African so
they
can
lobby
on Africa's behalf5
in the
belly
of the
policymaking
beast. This calculation is
politically
rational. For this
group
of
continental
Africans,
Africa is the continent
only,
not the di-
aspora.
This
group
wants their
long
lost kin to be Black
Americans with fond memories of Africa as their once-home.
This
group's charge
is for Black
Americans,
with roots in
Africa but now citizens of an American
homeland,
to be a
strong political-pressure group arguing
for Africa's benefit.
The United States is the
political
and economic
power
center
of the world, where the consensus of the U.S.
Treasury,
the
World Bank, and the International
Monetary
Fund makes
major
decisions that affect Africa. Continental Africans want
Black Americans to stay
connected to Africa
politically
and
economically.
The calculations made
by continental Africans
may
be realistic, but their assessment of the
power
of African
Americans as a
lobbying
force may
be overly optimistic; so,
too, their belief in the U.S. government's responsiveness
to
lobbying
on Africa's behalf.
Other continental Africans define Africa
differently,
see-
ing
Africa as both the continent and the
diaspora.
This
group6
carries the torch of
many
of their immediate
forebears,
such
as Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi
Azikiwe,
who were staunch
Pan-Africanists.
Many
in this
group
are
leading
intellectuals
who continue to carve intellectual and activist
spaces
for
other Africans from the
diaspora
to
pursue
the
study
of Africa
further.
They challenge
the White African studies establish-
ment to deal with racism and call for African Americans to
keep
close intellectual and emotional ties.7 This
group clearly
recognizes
the
ability
of African Americans to see inside-out
and
outside-in.8
Ayi
Kwei Armah is
perhaps
chief of intellec-
tual healers for
many
of
us,
as he unites African Americans
and continental Africans
through
Ast and Asar's revolution-
ary
resurrection of Afrocentric African studies in Africa in
Osiris
Rising.9
It
boggles
the mind that
Armah's
most recent
novels and
piercing
social
critiques
are rare finds in U.S. uni-
versities, libraries,
and bookstores.
New Directions
New directions for African Studies must
navigate
old
paths
and revisit the issue of race. In
doing so,
the field can
then
acknowledge
the
strong
historical intellectual tradition of
African Americans'
engagement
with Africa.
Otherwise,
we
continue to move in the same
circle,
with the same
antago-
nisms, complaints,
and divisions.
Acknowledgment
of the
past,
however, only
sets the record
straight. Beyond acknowledg-
ment,
we must redefine African studies in a
way
that
places
Africa at the center of our intellectual
foci,
with an
opening
for
all
voices, including
African American voices on their own
terms. What follows are not recommendations.
Instead,
I recount
movements, events,
and
progressive
actions
already taking place,
some of which I am
intimately
involved in.
Moreover,
there is
little need for more
recommendations,
for we all know what
must be done. The more
important question
for
many
of us is
"Why
is African studies not
doing
what must be done?"
More African Americans in African studies are
shifting
more
resolutely
toward a redefinition of Africa that is in line
with the definition of elder Pan-Africanist African Americans
and continental Africans such as Du
Bois, Nkrumah,
and
Azikiwe.
Here,
Africa is defined as the continent and its dias-
pora.
Pan-African frameworks are
being
used more
frequently
to look at the
problems, prospects,
and
possibilities
of
global
Africa.
Perhaps
it is as Claude Ake
suggested,
that our mar-
ginalization
would force us to look inside, back at our own
indigenous knowledge systems.10 Additionally,
African
American scholars not
specifically
trained in African studies
are
using
Pan-African frameworks to discover the similarities
of Black life on the continent and in the
diaspora.11
To
carry
out this work, they
return to Africa
intellectually
to
dig up
Africa's vast oral and written intellectual traditions. African
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Americans in the African Studies Association
may
be follow-
ing
the leads of
organizations
such as the African
Heritage
Studies Association and
political
science's National Confer-
ence of Black Political Scientists in this
regard.
Some African Americans and continental Africans are re-
visiting proposals
for
merging
African studies with African
American/Black studies,
a difficult
endeavor,
as African
American studies
programs generally
are
plagued
with
prob-
lems.
Many
of the
problems
are rooted in historical and institu-
tional
racism,
a lack of
autonomy, inadequate leadership,
and
struggle
over
ethnic, paradigmatic,
or
ideological
control of the
program
and curriculum. The
long-term viability
of
merging
African studies with African American studies
programs
is
plausible
and
inviting; yet
the
politics
of
race, ethnicity,
and
control in the
halls
of academia
prevent
movement to this end.
African Americans in African
studies, especially
those of
us who teach courses related to
globalization
and underdevel-
opment,12
must
more
forcefully
demand that African studies
confront the issue of race in African studies. African Ameri-
can
students,
who are
understandably puzzled
about
why
the
academy neglects
to raise race when it is so
prominent
in
their
lives, prompt
much of this demand. I am a
graduate
of a
historically
Black
college
or
university (HBCU)
and a former
lecturer at two such
institutions;
and at these
HBCUs,
race is
prioritized
as a variable for
teaching
about Africa and under-
development.
It is the
norm, alongside
the classic work of
Walter
Rodney,
How
Europe Underdeveloped Africa,
and the
less
popular
but
important Manning
Marable
work,
How
Capitalism Underdeveloped
Black America.
African Americans in African studies are
studying,
con-
ducting research,
and
writing
about
Africa,
and some are
moving
back to the continent. Ghana's
recently passed
Right
to Abode Law makes it
legal
for Africans from the
diaspora
to settle in Ghana
and,
in
time,
apply
for citizen-
ship.
African Americans from academia and other walks of
life have moved or are
contemplating doing
so.
They
in-
clude
families, individuals, entrepreneurs,
members of
churches, nongovernmental organization (NGO) activists,
employees
of multinational
corporations, private
consul-
tants, spouses
of
Ghanaians, "repatriated
Africans" such as
Rastafarians and
Garveyites, artists,
those who sufferer from
midlife
crises,
the
economically privileged,
the disillu-
sioned,
and retirees.13
A
greater
number of African American NGOs are also
setting up projects
and
programs
in Africa, particularly
for
education and women's
income-generating activities. The
National Council of
Negro Women, founded in 1935, has a
history of
projects with continental women's NGOs. Now,
younger and more diverse African American NGOs have
shifted to Africa. I was
recently
asked for advice about which
women's
organizations
on the continent African American
NGOs
ought
to focus on, given their limited resources, so that
these African American
groups might
also learn more about the
continent's
history, cultures, philosophies,
and
ways
of life.
African American
students, particularly graduate
stu-
dents,
often
inquire
about research
possibilities, internships,
and
funding opportunities
in Africa. In
1996-1997, I
organ-
ized 22
internships
in
Africa;14 more than half the interns
were African American.
Initially,
I
began organizing
the in-
ternships
for
eight
African American students who were Ford
Foundation fellows on a
special program targeted
to increase
the number of African Americans in African studies.15 Near
the
application deadline, only
two African American students
had
applied
for admission into the African studies
program
and
only
one of the two for the Ford Foundation
fellowship.
Unconvinced that
adequate
recruitment of African American
students had been
done,
I assumed the
responsibility
of re-
cruiting
African American
students, particularly
from
HBCUs;
from
my
home
institution,
Ohio
University;
and
from the
neighboring institution, my
alma
mater,
Ohio State
University.
In less than one
month,
the African studies
pro-
gram
had received more
applications
from
qualified
African
Americans than the Ford Foundation
grant
could
support.
As
I
organized internships
in
Africa
for these
eight students,
other African American students and their
parents requested
that I assist them with
getting
to
Africa,
too. The students I
placed
in
internships
were from Ohio and Ohio
State, plus
one from Howard
University.
The
internships
that I created
were in
Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ghana,
and
Senegal,
and several were with
organizations
whose Pan-African leader-
ships expressed
interest in interns who were
African American.
Six of the
eight
African American Ford Foundation fellows
completed
their African studies
degrees,
and one will soon.
Some are in doctoral
programs;
others are
working
with non-
profit organizations, media,
and financial institutions.
African Americans are also Black
Americanizing (per-
haps
even
re-Africanizing,
some
might argue)
Africa in the
sphere
of
popular
culture with
strong
influences in
dress,
mu-
sic,
and
language.16
Much of this
growth
of
popular
culture is
a
product
of U.S.
global
dominance of media industries that
export
African American
culture,
even in forms that resist the
mainstream.
Many
of the transnational
changes
that involve
continental Africa and African Americans are
taking place
in
the
grass
roots
among youth,
with whom
many
in the acad-
emy
are not in tune.
Continental Africans from
grassroots community organi-
zations are also
working with youth
from
Mississippi
to Cali-
fornia, examining
issues of "miseducation," lack of access to
schools, school violence, and
high levels of
young
Black
male incarceration.17 Global African
youth are
advancing
radical
agendas
to
express
their
rights and
attempt
to secure
their futures, including reparations
for
past wrongs.
African American students are also
revisiting
the
age-old
yet timeless
question,
"How do we
bridge
the
gap
between the
22 AFRICAN ISSUES
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continent and the
diaspora?"
Of all student
programs
related to
Africa held at Ohio
University
in
2001-2002, "Bridging
the
Gap" programs
drew the
largest
number of students both from
the continent and the
diaspora,
as well as the
largest
number of
African
faculty.
African American students' interest in African
studies is
clearly
established,
but
they
cannot
partake
of what is
not
being
offered. Are we
going
to
respond
to their calls?
African American
students,
from
my experience
as a stu-
dent and as a
teacher,
will continue to make these calls.
They
will continue to exercise their
right
to know.
They will
confront
themselves as Black
youth
vis-a-vis Africa and the world. Our
answers,
I
hope,
will not
merely
lead them down the same old
paths
we have walked in the last few
decades, only
to be
stopped
at the well-known
impasse. Perhaps
we should follow
them to new directions. One clear lesson is that
they
will not
live in intellectual exile while
waiting
on African studies and
larger
academia to
provide
answers.
They
will create alterna-
tive
learning experiences.
To understand more about new direc-
tions for African
studies,
we must listen
carefully
to the voices
of the
youth.
Who knows what old hats
might
learn?
My deepest
thanks and
respect
to
Soyini
Madison
for
critical
conversations, insights,
and
careful reading
and to Rita Ku-
mah
for skillful proofing.
Notes
1. Elliot Skinner, African
Americans and U.S.
Policy
To-
ward
Africa,
1850-1924: In
Defense of
Black
Nationality
(Washington,
D.C.: Howard
University
Press, 1992).
2.
Sylvia
Jacobs,
The
African
Nexus: Black American Per-
spectives
on the
European Partitioning of Africa,
1880-
1920
(Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981).
3. Michael Gomez, Exchanging
Our
Country
Marks: The
Transformation of African
Identities in the Colonial and
Antebellum South
(Chapel
Hill:
University
of North
Carolina Press, 1998).
4. A
graduate
student from
Mali, Beidy Sow,
in
my
U.S.
and Africa
class, shared this
proverb
and its translation
with the class in 2001.
5. A
graduate
student from
Sudan,
Asma Abdel Halim,
made this statement as we shared a
panel
at a
workshop
in the 1990s.
6.
Key among
this
group
is historian and novelist Paul Ti-
yambe
Zeleza.
7. See Thandika Mkandawire, "The Social Sciences in Af-
rica: Breaking
Local Barriers and
Negotiating
Interna-
tional Presence," African
Studies Review 40,
no. 2
(Sep-
tember
1997):
15-36.
8. See Pearl Robinson and Elliot Skinner, eds., Transformation
and
Resiliency
in
Africa
As Seen
by Afro-American
Scholars
(Washington,
D.C.: Howard
University Press, 1983).
9. See
Ayi
Kwei
Armah,
Osiris
Rising:
A Novel
of Africa
Past, Present, and Future
(Popenguine, Senegal:
Per
Ankh, 1995).
10. Claude
Ake, Democracy
and
Development
in
Africa
(Washington,
D.C.:
Brookings, 1997).
11. Pearl
Robinson,
"Area Studies in Search of
Africa,"
forthcoming.
12. Lisa
Aubrey, "Moving beyond
Collective
Learning
from the
Global North and
Bringing Humanity
Back to Itself: Pan-
Africanism, Women,
and
Co-Development,"
Vimut Shiksha
Special
Issue:
Unfolding Learning
Societies,
Experiencing
the Possibilities
(Udaipur,
India:
Shikshantar, People's
Insti-
tute for
Rethinking
Education and
Development, 2002)
and
http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls3_aubrey.htm;
Al-
fred
Zack-Williams, "Development
and
Diaspora: Sepa-
rate
Concerns,"
Review
of African
Political
Economy
65
(1995):
349-358.
13. All of this I discuss in
greater
detail in a
forthcoming pub-
lication titled "African Americans from the United States
Living
in Ghana: Who Are We?
Why
Are We Here? Are
We in Search of
Identity?"
in Ebere
Owudiwe, ed.,
The
Consciousness
of Africa
in the
Diaspora, forthcoming.
14. See
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/-ga320592/aubrey/advising.htm
for more information.
15. The
following
is a list of the students who were Ford
Foundation fellows and interns and their
placements:
Kenyatta Alben, Kenya,
Limuru Girls School and the
Daily
Nation
Newspaper;
Merinda
Aubrey, Ghana,
Abibiman
Academy
and Seventh
Day
Adventist Teach-
ers'
Training College;
Terri Cross, Kenya,
African Coun-
cil for Communication Education and African Centre for
Technology Studies;
Shane
Dickinson, Senegal,
Council
for the
Development
of Social Science Research in Af-
rica
(CODESRIA);
Derek
Oby, Senegal, CODESRIA;
Lena
Robinson, Tanzania, Regional Enterprise
Devel-
opment
Institute,
and
Kenya,
African Council for Com-
munication
Education;
Rashiki
Kuykendall, Ghana,
Abibiman
Academy
and Seventh
Day
Adventist Teach-
ers'
Training College;
and Chris
Ntukogu, Ghana,
As-
antehene Palace and Sankofa
Development Organization.
16. For the influence on
language,
see Alamin Mazrui, "Pan-
Africanism in the
Age
of Globalization: The
Linguistic
Agenda," Literary Griot: International Journal of
Black
Expressive Culture Studies 11, no. 1
(Spring 1999): 69-87.
17. Much
appreciation
to Coumba Toure and
Raj Sethia for
late-night, in-depth
discussions in
Udaipur, India, in De-
cember 2002 on this
topic.
VOLUME XXX/2 2002 23
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