Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1930618468 ISBN 13: 9781930618466

Publisher: School for Advanced Research Press, 2006

Synopsis

This book breaks new theoretical and methodological ground in the study of the African diaspora in the Atlantic world. Leading scholars of archaeology, linguistics, and socio-cultural anthropology draw upon extensive field experiences and archival investigations of black communities in North America, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa to challenge received paradigms in Afro-American anthropology. They employ dialogic approaches that demand both an awareness of the historical fashioning of anthropology's categories and selfreflexive, critical research and define a new agenda for the field. Paying close attention to power, politics, and the dynamism of never-finished, open-ended behavioral forms and symbolic repertoires, the contributors address colonialism, the slave trade, racism, ethnogenesis, New World nationalism, urban identity politics, the development of artworlds, musics and their publics, the emergence of new religious and ritual forms, speech genres, and contested historical representations. The authors offer sophisticated interpretations of cultural change, exchange, appropriation, and re-appropriation that challenge simplistic notions of culture.

About this title

About the Author:

Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida

Review:

This volume is a coherent and multifaceted contribution to both the anthropological study of the Afro Atlantic and the anthropology of studying the Afro Atlantic. It remains a vital source of information about intellectual and political debates four years after its publication, and a decade after the contributors dialoged in a seminar. --Pierre-Michel Fontaine, Transforming Anthropology, vol. 18, no. 1, 2010

...a theoretically, historically, and ethnographically rich collection well suited for both advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of of anthropology and the African Diaspora, as well as those dealing with issues related to race, nationalism, state formation, and empire. --Deborah A. Thomas, American Ethnologist, vol. 37, no. 3, August 2010

In addition to its thoughtful discussion, what makes this volume especially welcome is that it offers some frank observations that need to be made.... There is a large and growing corss-disciplinary literature on African diasporas. In this collection, contributors' thoughts about what directions we should pursue propel us forward by bringing us back to reflections on how both diaspora studies and anthropology should be done. --Aisha Khan, New West Indian Guide, vo. 83, no. 1&2, 2009

...a theoretically, historically, and ethnographically rich collection well suited for both advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of of anthropology and the African Diaspora, as well as those dealing with issues related to race, nationalism, state formation, and empire. --Deborah A. Thomas, American Ethnologist, vol. 37, no. 3, August 2010

Kevin Yelvington's introduction immediately sets the parameters of the...dialogic approach by asking the fundamental question... What has Africa given to America? The volume's 11 other chapters are divided into four parts. This volume is a coherent and multifaceted contribution to both the anthropological study of the Afro-Atlantic and the anthropoloyg of studying the Afro-Atlantic. --Pierre-Michel Fontaine, Transforming Anthropology, vol. 18, no. 1, 2010

...a theoretically, historically, and ethnographically rich collection well suited for both advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of of anthropology and the African Diaspora, as well as those dealing with issues related to race, nationalism, state formation, and empire. --Deborah A. Thomas, American Ethnologist, vol. 37, no. 3, August 2010

Kevin Yelvington's introduction immediately sets the parameters of the...dialogic approach by asking the fundamental question... What has Africa given to America? The volume's 11 other chapters are divided into four parts. This volume is a coherent and multifaceted contribution to both the anthropological study of the Afro-Atlantic and the anthropoloyg of studying the Afro-Atlantic. --Pierre-Michel Fontaine, Transforming Anthropology, vol. 18, no. 1, 2010

About this edition

• Publisher: School for Advanced Research Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1930618468
• ISBN 13: 9781930618466
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 500
• Editor: Yelvington Kevin A.