Black Subjects in Africa and Its Diasporas

Through the research and experiences of 16 scholars whose native homes span ten countries, this collection shifts the discussion of belonging and affinity within Africa and its diaspora toward local perceptions and the ways in which these notions are asserted or altered.

"The beauty of this book rests not only in its cutting-edge scholarship, but also in its rare honesty about the salience of one s identity as researcher vis-à-vis "subjects"; about the shifting constructions of Blackness relative to research locale; and, about ever-present power dynamics, albeit unspoken, in interviews in field research. Its critique of conventional research methodology, which assumes researchers of Africa and the African Diaspora are white, is long overdue and liberating for students and scholars. A must-read, it puts race, self-reflection, and researcher humility at the center of knowledge production." - Lisa Aubrey, Associate Professor, Department of African and African American Studies, Arizona State University"I strongly recommend this book to readers interested in field research, especially in its complex personal and political dynamics in African and African diasporic situations. The contributors offer compelling insights into the challenges and vulnerabilities of fieldwork, whether it is undertaken as ethnography, oral history, or the qualitative pursuit of other social sciences. This book clearly illuminates field work as a mode of investigation and knowledge co-production that is socially negotiated, fraught with ethical challenges, and predicated on the effective navigation of anxieties and ambiguities that may be read or, in some cases, misread, with potentially significant outcomes for nuancing and deepening our understanding of past andpresent social realities." - Faye V. Harrison, author of Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age"Following in the tradition of Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou, this collection explores the ways encounters between researchers and the communities they visit continually reshape and reinterpret African diaspora identities. A compelling and refreshingly frank look at issues in African diaspora fieldwork - essential in the face of all the silences in the historical record - that will be of interest to ethnographers, anthropologists, oral historians, and cultural travelers everywhere." - Kim D. Butler, Associate Professor of History, Department of Africana Studies, Rutgers University

BENJAMIN TALTON is an Assistant Professor of History at Temple University, USA.
QUINCY T. MILLS is an Assistant Professor of History at Vassar College, USA.