Download or read book The Akan Diaspora in the Americas written by Kwasi Konadu and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2010-05-12 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Konadu calls attention to the historic formation of Akan culture in West Africa and its reach into the Americas. He examines the Akan experience in Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, former Danish and Dutch colonies, and North America, and how those early experiences foreground the contemporary engagement and movement of diasporic Africans and Akan people between Ghana and North America.
Download or read book The Akan Diaspora in the Americas written by City University of New Kwasi Konadu Assistant Professor of History Center for Ethnic Studies and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010-04-14 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his groundbreaking study of the Akan diaspora, Konadu demonstrates how this cultural group originating in West Africa both engaged in and went beyond the familiar diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never formed a majority among other Africans in the Americas. But their leadership skills in war and political organization, efficacy in medicinal plant use and spiritual practice, and culture archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far outweighed their sheer numbers. Konadu argues that a composite Akan culture calibrated between the Gold Coast and forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. The book examines the Akan experience in Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, former Danish and Dutch colonies, and North America, and how those early experiences foreground the modern engagement and movement of diasporic Africans and Akan people between Ghana and North America. Locating the Akan variable in the African diasporic equation allows scholars and students of the Americas to better understand how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still evolving.
Download or read book Akan Studies in Africa and the Diaspora written by Kwasi Konadu and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of key essays about the Akan people, their history, and their culture. The Akans are an ethnic group from West Africa, predominately Ghana and Togo, of roughly 25 million people. From the twelfth century on, Akans created numerous states based largely on gold mining and the trading of cash crops. This brought wealth to many states such as Akwamu, which stretched all the way to modern Benin, and ultimately led to the rise of the best known Akan empire, the Empire of Ashanti. Throughout history, Akans were a highly educated group; notable Akan people in modern times include Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. This volume features a new array of primary sources that provide fresh and nuanced perspectives. This collection is the first of its kind.
Download or read book The Akan People written by Kwasi Konadu and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of primary sources with introductions.Paper back edition is an abridge version of the more scholarly hardcover edition for the general reader and for students.
Download or read book Akan Pioneers written by Kwasi Konadu and published by . This book was released on 2018-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking study tells the story of a West African people, the origins and character of their cultural forms and ideas, and how these Akan, or "pioneering peoples," shaped the politics and societies of their homeland as well as the European colonies in the Americas that received their enslaved members since the sixteenth century.
Download or read book Our Own Way in This Part of the World written by Kwasi Konadu and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kofi Dᴐnkᴐ was a blacksmith and farmer, as well as an important healer, intellectual, spiritual leader, settler of disputes, and custodian of shared values for his Ghanaian community. In Our Own Way in This Part of the World Kwasi Konadu centers Dᴐnkᴐ's life story and experiences in a communography of Dᴐnkᴐ's community and nation from the late nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth, which were shaped by historical forces from colonial Ghana's cocoa boom to decolonization and political and religious parochialism. Although Dᴐnkᴐ touched the lives of thousands of citizens and patients, neither he nor they appear in national or international archives covering the region. Yet his memory persists in his intellectual and healing legacy, and the story of his community offers a non-national, decolonized example of social organization structured around spiritual forces that serves as a powerful reminder of the importance for scholars to take their cues from the lived experiences and ideas of the people they study.
Download or read book Gold Coast Diasporas written by Walter C. Rucker and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-28 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Provocative and well written . . . a must-read for any scholar interested in African identity, the transatlantic slave trade, and resistance.” —American Historical Review Although they came from distinct polities and peoples who spoke different languages, slaves from the African Gold Coast were collectively identified by Europeans as “Coromantee” or “Mina.” Why these ethnic labels were embraced and how they were utilized by enslaved Africans to develop new group identities is the subject of Walter C. Rucker’s absorbing study. Rucker examines the social and political factors that contributed to the creation of New World ethnic identities and assesses the ways displaced Gold Coast Africans used familiar ideas about power as a means of understanding, defining, and resisting oppression. He explains how performing Coromantee and Mina identity involved a common set of concerns and the creation of the ideological weapons necessary to resist the slavocracy. These weapons included obeah powders, charms, and potions; the evolution of “peasant” consciousness and the ennoblement of common people; increasingly aggressive displays of masculinity; and the empowerment of women as leaders, spiritualists, and warriors, all of which marked sharp breaks or reformulations of patterns in their Gold Coast past. “One of the book’s greatest strengths is the ways in which Rucker painstakingly traces how ethnic labels were appropriated, recast, and ultimately employed as a means to establish community bonds and resist oppression . . . Chapters that focus on the creation of the Gold Coast diaspora, religion, and women make for a captivating text that will be of interest to graduate students and specialist readers. Recommended.” —Choice
Download or read book Transatlantic Africa written by Kwasi Konadu and published by Diasporic Africa Press. This book was released on 2018-11-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transatlantic Africa examines the internal workings of African and diasporic slave societies in the transatlantic era. Emphasizing a global context and the multiplicity of African experiences during that period, historian Kwasi Konadu interprets transatlantic slaving and its consequences through African and diasporic primary sources. Based on careful reading of Africans' oral histories, archival documents, and visual evidence, the book connects those experiences to local and international slaving systems. It also tackles the themes of commodification, capitalism, abolitionism, and reparations. By integrating these views with critical interpretations, Transatlantic Africa balances intellectual rigor with broad accessibility, helping readers to think anew about how transoceanic slaving made the modern world
Download or read book Reversing Sail written by Michael A. Gomez and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Captures the essential political, cultural, social, and economic developments that shaped the black experience.
Download or read book Saltwater Slavery written by Stephanie E. Smallwood and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold, innovative book promises to radically alter our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade, and the depths of its horrors. Stephanie E. Smallwood offers a penetrating look at the process of enslavement from its African origins through the Middle Passage and into the American slave market. Saltwater Slavery is animated by deep research and gives us a graphic experience of the slave trade from the vantage point of the slaves themselves. The result is both a remarkable transatlantic view of the culture of enslavement, and a painful, intimate vision of the bloody, daily business of the slave trade.
Download or read book The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra written by G. Ugo Nwokeji and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra dissects and explains the structure, dramatic expansion, and manifold effects of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra. By showing that the rise of the Aro merchant group was the key factor in trade expansion, G. Ugo Nwokeji reinterprets why and how such large-scale commerce developed in the absence of large-scale centralized states. The result is the first study to link the structure and trajectory of the slave trade in a major exporting region to the expansion of a specific African merchant group - among other fresh insights into Atlantic Africa's involvement in the trade - and the most comprehensive treatment of Atlantic slave trade in the Bight of Biafra. The fundamental role of culture in the organization of trade is highlighted, transcending the usual economic explanations in a way that complicates traditional generalizations about work, domestic slavery, and gender in pre-colonial Africa.
Download or read book Identity Spirit and Freedom in the Atlantic World written by Robert Hanserd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book applies oral, archival and other interdisciplinary evidence from West Africa and the Americas to analyses of new world Maroons, slaves and free blacks, examining a "Gold Coast" entrepot of Akan, Ga, Guan and other peoples in an Atlantic era of non-linear, mutable intersection of contested history and culture. Combining extant evidence with newer interdisciplinary insights to reconsider under-recognized histories and actors, Identity, Spirit and Freedom in the Atlantic World explores West African cosmologies, regional statecraft and socio-cultural practice, and the way they contributed to Atlantic ideas of freedom, identity and spirituality. Archival researches of British, Dutch and Danish Atlantic thoroughfares bring to light histories of royals, priests and others remade as captive laborers, Maroons and free blacks. Looking at Akwamu’s overtaking of Great Accra, Jamaica’s Maroon Wars, the 1712 Rebellion in New York and many other examples, this book explores the evolution of identity and spirituality in the diaspora of the Gold Coast and the Atlantic world. Identity, Spirit and Freedom in the Atlantic World will be of interest to scholars and students of African studies, the African diaspora, cultural studies and Atlantic and American history.
Download or read book Religion Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora written by William Ackah and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora explores the ways in which religious ideas and beliefs continue to play a crucial role in the lives of people of African descent. The chapters in this volume use historical and contemporary examples to show how people of African descent develop and engage with spiritual rituals, organizations and practices to make sense of their lives, challenge injustices and creatively express their spiritual imaginings. This book poses and answers the following critical questions: To what extent are ideas of spirituality emanating from Africa and the diaspora still influenced by an African aesthetic? What impact has globalisation had on spiritual and cultural identities of peoples on African descendant peoples? And what is the utility of the practices and social organizations that house African spiritual expression in tackling social, political cultural and economic inequities? The essays in this volume reveal how spirituality weaves and intersects with issues of gender, class, sexuality and race across Africa and the diaspora. It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students interested in the study of African religions, race and religion, sociology of religion and anthropology.
Download or read book The African Diaspora written by Patrick Manning and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-05 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrick Manning follows the multiple routes that brought Africans and people of African descent into contact with one another and with Europe, Asia, and the Americas. In joining these stories, he shows how the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean fueled dynamic interactions among black communities and cultures and how these patterns resembled those of a number of connected diasporas concurrently taking shaping across the globe. Manning begins in 1400 and traces the connections that enabled Africans to mutually identify and hold together as a global community. He tracks discourses on race, changes in economic circumstance, the evolving character of family life, and the growth of popular culture. He underscores the profound influence that the African diaspora had on world history and demonstrates the inextricable link between black migration and the rise of modernity. Inclusive and far-reaching, The African Diaspora proves that the advent of modernity cannot be fully understood without taking the African peoples and the African continent into account.
Download or read book The Quest for Spiritual Transformation written by Nana Akua Kyerewaa Opokuwaa and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2005 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you searching for a spiritual path that speaks to your cultural identity? Are you curious about the connection of the African-American experience to ancient African culture and spirituality? The Quest for Spiritual Transformation: An Introduction to Traditional Akan Religion, Rituals, and Practices is an important contribution to the exploration of cultural approaches to healing the mind, body, and spirit. Author Nana Opokuwaa clearly illustrates the connection between the traditions and beliefs of Africans born in the Diaspora to the ancient customs of the Akans. Her writing style exhibits a special sensitivity and compassion that shows appreciation for the reader's need for guidance. Opokuwaa's approach to explaining the Akan Akom Tradition brings clarity to the complicated practices associated with African religion in the Diaspora. In addition to seven study guides meant to serve as discussion points within your organization, group of friends, or for yourself, this book includes a list of references to enlighten you about Akan culture, customs, and traditions. There is a glossary of Twi words, with which readers may not be familiar, utilized in the book and an index for readily available reference. In the follow-up to Akan Protocol: Remembering the Traditions of Our Ancestors, Opokuwaa continues her effort to share information about the ancient traditions and customs of the Akans of Ghana, West Africa.
Download or read book Reversing Sail written by Michael A. Gomez and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the global unfolding of the African Diaspora, the migrations and dispersals of people of African, from antiquity to the modern period. Their exploits, challenges, and struggles are discussed over a wide expanse of time in ways that link as well as differentiate past and present circumstances. The experiences of Africans in the Old World, in the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds, is followed by their movement into the New, where their plight in lands claimed by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English colonial powers is analyzed from enslavement through the Cold War. While appropriate mention is made of persons of renown, particular attention is paid to the everyday lives of working class people and their cultural efflorescence. The book also attempts to explain contemporary plights and struggles through the lens of history.
Download or read book Rituals Runaways and the Haitian Revolution written by Crystal Nicole Eddins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Haitian Revolution was perhaps the most successful slave rebellion in modern history; it created the first and only free and independent Black nation in the Americas. This book tells the story of how enslaved Africans forcibly brought to colonial Haiti through the trans-Atlantic slave trade used their cultural and religious heritages, social networks, and labor and militaristic skills to survive horrific conditions. They built webs of networks between African and 'creole' runaways, slaves, and a small number of free people of color through rituals and marronnage - key aspects to building the racial solidarity that helped make the revolution successful. Analyzing underexplored archival sources and advertisements for fugitives from slavery, Crystal Eddins finds indications of collective consciousness and solidarity, unearthing patterns of resistance. The book fills an important gap in the existing literature on the Haitian Revolution. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
