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Title: " ... To do credit to my nation, wherever I go" : West Indian and Cape Verdean immigrants in Southeastern New England, 1890-1940
Creator: Edwards, Janelle Marlena
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This work is a community study that centers the experiences of black immigrants as an overlapping diaspora in multi-ethnic and transnational African-American history. It argues that, through the operationalization of their familial networks, ethnic organizations, and neighborhood enclaves, black immigrants in New England depart from traditional histories of assimilation and acculturation. Though much scholarship has been dedicated to the politically charged organizations and black immigrant...
Show moreThis work is a community study that centers the experiences of black immigrants as an overlapping diaspora in multi-ethnic and transnational African-American history. It argues that, through the operationalization of their familial networks, ethnic organizations, and neighborhood enclaves, black immigrants in New England depart from traditional histories of assimilation and acculturation. Though much scholarship has been dedicated to the politically charged organizations and black immigrant participation in New York, this microhistory of Southeastern New England's port cities -- Providence and New Bedford--demonstrates the commonplace, quotidian lives of West Indians and Cape Verdeans as neighbors, friends, and relatives who experienced and adapted to their diaspora condition differently. While West Indians altered their community landscape and eventually assimilated into the African-American community, Cape Verdeans retained a Cape Verdean ethnic identity, bolstered by their transnational shipping fleet and the constant flow of people, goods, and ideas from the homeland.
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Title: Ain't I a preacher? : black women's preaching rhetoric
Creator: Marshall, Cona Sava Marie
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: “Any attempt to understand American religious history, the black Church, or American women’s history without an adequate grasp of the groundbreaking work of these black preaching women will be incomplete.” (Collier-Thomas 8) Building on the call-to-action by historian, Bettye Collier-Thomas in the above quote, my project examines sermonic rhetoric of three leading contemporary preacher-scholars – Teresa Fry Brown, Vashti McKenzie and Eboni Marshall Turman – to contribute to narratives of...
Show more“Any attempt to understand American religious history, the black Church, or American women’s history without an adequate grasp of the groundbreaking work of these black preaching women will be incomplete.” (Collier-Thomas 8) Building on the call-to-action by historian, Bettye Collier-Thomas in the above quote, my project examines sermonic rhetoric of three leading contemporary preacher-scholars – Teresa Fry Brown, Vashti McKenzie and Eboni Marshall Turman – to contribute to narratives of Black rhetorical scholarship that suggests that Black preaching has served as a catalyst in the cultivation of Black rhetoric; all while underrepresenting Black women preachers within this cultivation. My objective is to identify recurring components of Fry Brown, McKenzie and Marshall Turman’s preaching rhetoric in order (1) to name Black women preaching tenets and (2) build a Black woman’s preaching method. I accomplish this by using an interdisciplinary approach, synthesizing perspectives from Women, Black, Rhetorical, and Religious Studies. In doing this, I can better categorize, name and scaffold Black women’s preaching rhetoric. I outline how Black preaching has been taken up within the fields of Rhetoric and Homiletics overtime; illustrating its contributions and importance to the field. After establishing terms and relevance of Black preaching to both disciplines, I position my work to showcase the gap in literature that does not represent preaching methods constructed solely by Black women. While the method is descriptive of Black women’s preaching rhetoric it is prescriptive in providing a method for all preachers to utilize. I succeed in constructing a Black woman’s preaching method by conducting primary research, investigating methods of Black women’s preaching. I analyze six sermons; two sermons each of Fry Brown, McKenzie and Marshall Turman. My analysis shows that their preaching offered four fundamental tenets that include (1) addressing gender through abstaining from attributing male gender pronouns to God and humanity, utilizing gender neutral Bibles, incorporating LGBT2QQIAAP concerns within Black and womanist agendas for justice, and including women and children into sermonic narratives (2) providing complementary sources to the Bible that include Black literarians, activists, and personal lived narratives (3) inserting womanist interpretations by focusing on the liberation of women characters in the Bible while also aligning oppression in the Bible with that of Black women in the U.S. and (4) scaffolding the sermon to include prayers, contextualized obstacles, titles, and promotion of ethics. Ultimately, my research is important because it provides a better understanding for identity formation, gender relations and active resistance towards patriarchal normativizing.
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Title: Nollywood goes to Brazil : counter-hegemonic media flows in the African diaspora
Creator: Ewing, Kamahra
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACTNOLLYWOOD GOES TO BRAZIL: COUNTERHEGEMONIC  MEDIA FLOWS IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA ByKamahra EwingThe current research titled under the dissertation heading “Nollywood Goes To Brazil: Counter Hegemonic Media Flows in the African Diaspora” explores the dissemination of Nigerian cultural productions in Brazil and its reception by a wide array of primarily Afro-Brazilians and Neo-African Diasporas in Brazil. Although Brazil has one of the most robust media industries in the world, the...
Show moreABSTRACTNOLLYWOOD GOES TO BRAZIL: COUNTERHEGEMONIC  MEDIA FLOWS IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA ByKamahra EwingThe current research titled under the dissertation heading “Nollywood Goes To Brazil: Counter Hegemonic Media Flows in the African Diaspora” explores the dissemination of Nigerian cultural productions in Brazil and its reception by a wide array of primarily Afro-Brazilians and Neo-African Diasporas in Brazil. Although Brazil has one of the most robust media industries in the world, the visual representations presented in its media overlook, ignore, and otherwise discount the cultural importance of 51% of the majority of its Black and Brown populations. Therefore, non-African descendants produce television and film representations, which follow a mainstream European Diaspora or Hollywood version, which collapse most spectrums of Brazilian society. The scarcity of a presence in television and movies forces some African descendants to supplement visual images with the support of Afro-Brazilian producers who create documentaries and cinematic representations. Brazilian audiences consume a significant amount of Hollywood and Eurocentric Brazilian productions that rarely feature a predominantly Black cast to supplement their lack of visual representation. Current legislation seeks to augment overlooked populations throughout society even though recent statistics reveal that there is still minimal representation within Brazil. The gap within Black representation could begin to be filled with African cinema that can elucidate contemporary culture through the Nigerian perspective. The Nigerian movies or so-called “Nollywood industry” is a powerful vehicle for creating contemporary representations of Nigerian culture that has the ability to change the way that Africans and the African Diaspora view themselves. Nollywood in Brazil reveals how the largest movie industry in the world could complement current legislation in the country, which mandates African and Afro-Brazilian education. Indeed, recent Brazilian government policies provide incentives for teachers, cultural institutions, and policy makers to promote Nollywood films within Brazil. This project is based on participant observation, surveys, and an ethnographic field study of the official producers, viewers, and distributors of Nollywood videos within São Paulo and Salvador, Bahia in Brazil. Three trends fueled the current investigation. First, new affirmative action policies have encouraged Brazilians to recognize the many contributions of African heritage to their society. As such, I examine Nollywood cultural productions in Brazil in its nascent period (since 2011). Second, I examined the mostly Afro-Brazilian reception to a Nollywood movie whose reactions within six site locations were mixed, ranging from strong identification with African culture, homeland, or aesthetic to some considering the films to be highly offensive. A third (and related to the second trend) is the observation that new African Diasporas, particularly Nigerian immigrants to Brazil, not only constitute a large market of consumers of these movies but are also distributors of these movies to other communities. Within new Diaspora communities mostly in São Paulo and other major cities, Nollywood movies are primarily disseminated by way of informal transnational distribution networks.
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Title: "Step up little homie, got something to say" : a study of hip-hop pedagogy in an out of school program
Creator: Newby, Ashley Luetisha
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Much of the existing Hip-Hop Pedagogy research focuses on the inclusion of Hip-Hop in formal classroom spaces, and the role that Hip-Hop culture plays in the lives of Black and Brown youth specifically. By investigating a Hip-Hop Academy that teaches Hip-Hop culture rather than merely using it as a bridge between academic goals and student realities, this project seeks to add to the existing literature on Hip-Hop Pedagogy in education. Through the use of observations and interviews over the...
Show moreMuch of the existing Hip-Hop Pedagogy research focuses on the inclusion of Hip-Hop in formal classroom spaces, and the role that Hip-Hop culture plays in the lives of Black and Brown youth specifically. By investigating a Hip-Hop Academy that teaches Hip-Hop culture rather than merely using it as a bridge between academic goals and student realities, this project seeks to add to the existing literature on Hip-Hop Pedagogy in education. Through the use of observations and interviews over the course of a school year, the voices of the participants at the Hip-Hop Academy are placed central and the ways that they conceptualize and navigate their Hip-Hop and Academic identities are explored. This study investigates how students who are being explicitly taught Hip-Hop see the connections between the culture and their academic lives in their own words. The research questions for this study are (1) What is the nature of a space grounded in Hip-Hop culture and constructed through critical theory? (2) What is the nature of student reflection on the world? And (3) What does student participation in spaces like the Hip-Hop Academy reveal about how students want to learn? Through the use of observations, ethnographic field notes, and individual interviews, the voices of the students at the Academy are centered in this study, and the voices of the instructors are incorporated in ways that both answer the research questions, and reveal the ways that the students view their academic and Hip-Hop identities operating in conjunction with one another. The findings reveal that not only does Hip-Hop Pedagogy resonate with student populations that are marginalized, but that it also resonates with some of the most privileged identities in ways that allows all students to recognize and use their voices to express who their multiple identities in ways that are empowering. Furthermore, the students in this study see the skills that they learn through the Hip-Hop Academy as applicable to the other areas of their lives in ways that reveal a student-identified difference between “knowledge” and “education.” The findings of this study reveal that students are not seeing their Hip-Hop goals as in opposition to their academic and career goals, rather they are using the skills that developed through Hip-Hop culture to pursue both Hip-Hop and academic goals simultaneously in ways that compliment each other. This offers implications not only for the power behind honoring student voices through Hip-Hop, but also for how our classrooms and learning spaces can be structured in ways that both make students want to be there and feel comfortable asserting their own voices.
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Title: The under-representation of African American women in the STEM fields within the academy : a historical profile and current perceptions
Creator: Howard, Tenisha Senora
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This research project seeks to discover the reasons behind the underrepresentation of African American women (AAW) in higher education, particularly in the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics fields. Why is there underrepresentation of AAW in the STEM fields? Research evidence has demonstrated that AAW face social disparities such as race, gender, and class in the academy. A lack of adequate mentoring and financial resources to support their research efforts are related to these...
Show moreThis research project seeks to discover the reasons behind the underrepresentation of African American women (AAW) in higher education, particularly in the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics fields. Why is there underrepresentation of AAW in the STEM fields? Research evidence has demonstrated that AAW face social disparities such as race, gender, and class in the academy. A lack of adequate mentoring and financial resources to support their research efforts are related to these disparities and present fundamental challenges for them. To conduct the inquiry about the barriers AAW have to overcome to achieve success in STEM disciplines, a qualitative research method was used to “attend to social, historical, and temporal context. The findings of these studies are tentatively applied; that is, they may be applicable in diverse situations based on comparability of other contexts” (Mariano, 1995, p. 464). The researcher collected data by conducting in-depth interviews with five participants, using an open-ended conversational format to facilitate the development of trust, rapport, and maximum elicitation of stories from the participants. The results suggest that AAW overcome barriers to successful STEM careers through their family and social ties, mentoring relationships as well as their religious practices.
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Title: African diaspora collective action : rituals, runaways, and the Haitian Revolution
Creator: Eddins, Crystal Nicole
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "The project is an interdisciplinary case study that couples an African Diaspora theoretical paradigm with concepts from social movements scholarship to explain the influence of Africa-inspired sacred rituals on oppositional consciousness and patterns of escape from enslavement - mawonaj - leading up to the Revolution. My data emerges from archival and secondary source research in France, the United States, and Haiti. I bring focus to the study of collective consciousness in two fields,...
Show more"The project is an interdisciplinary case study that couples an African Diaspora theoretical paradigm with concepts from social movements scholarship to explain the influence of Africa-inspired sacred rituals on oppositional consciousness and patterns of escape from enslavement - mawonaj - leading up to the Revolution. My data emerges from archival and secondary source research in France, the United States, and Haiti. I bring focus to the study of collective consciousness in two fields, African American & African Studies and Sociology, with attention to how consciousness was shaped by material conditions, was reinforced in spheres of interaction, and guided social action among early modern members of the African Diaspora in colonial Haiti (Saint Domingue)." -- Abstract.
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Title: Ebonics and Dr. Ernie Adolphus Smith : toward a comparative and holistic paradigm in black linguistics
Creator: Minamoto, Kunihiko
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: One African-centered linguistic paradigm argues the primary language of most descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States is not English but an African language. The language is called “Ebonics.” Clinical linguist Dr. Ernie Adolphus Smith (1938-) is the most conspicuous figure in the history of the paradigm. The reconstructed life story of Dr. Smith from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge suggests his comparative linguistic paradigm may have been a product of the...
Show moreOne African-centered linguistic paradigm argues the primary language of most descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States is not English but an African language. The language is called “Ebonics.” Clinical linguist Dr. Ernie Adolphus Smith (1938-) is the most conspicuous figure in the history of the paradigm. The reconstructed life story of Dr. Smith from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge suggests his comparative linguistic paradigm may have been a product of the scientific knowledge formation process by which Dr. Smith interpreted and reconstructed the ideological-political, experiential-practical, and theoretical-scientific meanings of his mother tongue, whites’ language, and other relevant experiences, and may have integrated the reconstructed meanings into his paradigm, in the social, political, and economic contexts of Los Angeles from the 1940s through the 1970s. It also suggests the paradigm attempted to address the arbitrariness and selectivity of the dominant paradigms in black linguistics or linguistics in general, which may have gone through the same scientific knowledge formation process. The crux of this study lies in my proposition that both the mainstream paradigms and the Ebonics paradigm are products of the inherent arbitrariness and selectivity of scientific criteria in linguistics which are in symbolic interaction with human subjectivity.
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Title: "S.W.A.G. = Style With a Goal" : exploring fashion/style as a critical literacy of Black youth in urban schools
Creator: Hayes, Sherrae M.
Date: 2015
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study is a multi-method, qualitative project using Youth Participatory Action Research through ethnographic design to examine the uses of fashion/style by Black youth as a form of critical literacy. Taking place in the setting of an urban, public, Midwestern middle school, the work outlines the ways these students communicated through their fashion sense and thus made sense of their identities and the identities of others as messages critically coded and decoded daily. This work examines...
Show moreThis study is a multi-method, qualitative project using Youth Participatory Action Research through ethnographic design to examine the uses of fashion/style by Black youth as a form of critical literacy. Taking place in the setting of an urban, public, Midwestern middle school, the work outlines the ways these students communicated through their fashion sense and thus made sense of their identities and the identities of others as messages critically coded and decoded daily. This work examines current texts/theories surrounding characteristics of uniform policy, critical literacy, and identity development through fashion/style. Ultimately, through this study’s action-orientation, this work highlights how students participated in student-led development of a uniform/dress code policy that incorporated their own critical fashion literacies. Critical Fashion Literacy, a particular form of critical literacy this work seeks to contribute to literacy studies at large, is centered upon the notion of how we each possibly read and write messages and meanings through fashion/style daily. Essentially, this study works to center youth voices with a potential impact on possibilities for their future as change agents in education in their own right – moving beyond fashion statements to the statements they are making through fashion.
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Title: Unapologetically Black : transnational diasporic consciousness in the United States and South Africa
Creator: Walton, David Mathew
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Since the 1990s, “Black Power Studies” has expanded dramatically. Similarly, in the last two decades, a significant body of historical scholarship on the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa has been published. Still, the historiography of both fields is lacking an exploration of the development of a transnational diasporic consciousness and activism. Contributing to these two distinct, yet overlapping, bodies of scholarly intrigue, this study seeks to explore the contributions of...
Show moreSince the 1990s, “Black Power Studies” has expanded dramatically. Similarly, in the last two decades, a significant body of historical scholarship on the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa has been published. Still, the historiography of both fields is lacking an exploration of the development of a transnational diasporic consciousness and activism. Contributing to these two distinct, yet overlapping, bodies of scholarly intrigue, this study seeks to explore the contributions of important, yet under-acknowledged and under-researched, black liberation organizations in the United States and South Africa that were active during the turbulent decades between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. Unapologetically Black sheds light on the black South African and black American cross fertilization and evolution of “black power” and “blackness” as a modern diasporic concept and identity. This study unearths how they defined and interpreted issues and agenda setting. Using four case studies, this work critically examines how they sought to address the plight and ameliorate the status of African descendants. With a focus on student activists and labor organizers, Unapologetically Black expands the tassel work of other scholars concerning the development of a shared global ‘Black’ identity and movement. The thrust of this study is the scrutinizing of documents produced by the four organizations in the case studies to distill commonly shared themes, strategies, and philosophers. This method, although comparative in nature, is a transnational approach to tracing shared ideas and the common identity construction project of Black Power and Black Consciousness by using these four specific case studies. In this sense, Unapologetically Black is transnational in orientation and a project in black global history. Unapologetically Black identifies and unpacks the perspective of ‘Blackness’ in these movements, analyzes the notion of ‘Black’ identity (or identities), and reveals how BP and BC adherents translated these identities into action. Pressing questions that are addressed in Unapologetically Black include: How do we explain the emergence and development of “black power” and “black consciousness” in these transnational locales? What are the deeper meanings and implications of “black power” and “black consciousness?” How did the members of the organizations conceptualize “black” and “blackness?” How did these organizations formulate and construct their political identities as well as use these identities in the broader global black freedom struggle? My argument is that based upon prior contact, a shared philosophical canon, and facing similar racialized oppression; Black Power and Black Conciousness adherents endeavored to create a new identity and culture to assert a personhood to seize self-determination. ‘Black’ and ‘Blackness’ were conceptualized as a militant revolutionary personhood and culture rooted in self-reliance and self-defense. To those ends, Black Power and Black Conciousness adherents created organizations and independent institutions to replace the state and/or fill the human and civil service needs the state was unwilling or incapable of filling. Unapologetically Black, in short, is about the evolution of ‘Black’ as an identity, political consciousness, cultural framework, and organizing tool.
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Title: In absentia : the lost ones of america's/motown's revolution(s)
Creator: Farley, Joyce-Zoe
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In Absentia: The Lost Ones of America's/Motown's Revolution(s) is a non-traditional documentary dissertation film contesting and adding to the history of Sunday, July 23, 1967-the 1967 Detroit Insurrection-from Black residents and eyewitnesses using their oral history testimonies. This unorthodox undertaking uses a collection of detailed video-recorded, critical ethnographic, thematic life history oral histories from thirty residents, with ten participants selected for the first part, who...
Show moreIn Absentia: The Lost Ones of America's/Motown's Revolution(s) is a non-traditional documentary dissertation film contesting and adding to the history of Sunday, July 23, 1967-the 1967 Detroit Insurrection-from Black residents and eyewitnesses using their oral history testimonies. This unorthodox undertaking uses a collection of detailed video-recorded, critical ethnographic, thematic life history oral histories from thirty residents, with ten participants selected for the first part, who survived, participated, chronicled, and/or attempted to restore law and order during the chaos. Interviewees assess, challenge, correct, and add to the metanarrative of urban uprising and the Detroit rebellion, which is overshadowed by an abundance of misinterpretations of Black life in the city, media perversions of Black agency and performance, and critiques of rioting rhetoric.
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Title: Innovation and performance-driven entrepreneurship : a comparative analysis of the entrepreneurial orientation of Black SMEs vs. majority SMEs
Creator: Harris, Kenneth L. (Graduate of Michigan State University)
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "The last 15 years have seen a significant increase in the participation of African Americans in the U.S. labor force and, as a result, a rapid growth in the number of self-employed Black businessmen and women relative to White Americans (Fairlie, 2004; Fairlie & Sundstrom, 1997). Noteworthy regarding the increase is that Black businesses in the U.S. struggled to perform, in comparison to majority-White businesses, in the increasingly competitive marketplace today. The purpose of this...
Show more"The last 15 years have seen a significant increase in the participation of African Americans in the U.S. labor force and, as a result, a rapid growth in the number of self-employed Black businessmen and women relative to White Americans (Fairlie, 2004; Fairlie & Sundstrom, 1997). Noteworthy regarding the increase is that Black businesses in the U.S. struggled to perform, in comparison to majority-White businesses, in the increasingly competitive marketplace today. The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the general understanding of how businesses' entrepreneurial orientation (EO)--a firm-level strategic orientation which captures an organization's strategy-making practices, managerial philosophies, and firm behaviors that are entrepreneurial in nature --impacts Black business performance. Although research has been studying majority firms for years and correlated EO as a strong predictor of firm performance, there is a widening gap in the literature assessing the performance measures of Black businesses. Data gathered from this study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by measuring the performance of Black and majority small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and by critically examining any disparities or commonalities that may exist individually, and between these two distinct organizations. New business start-ups (entries) into the marketplace have been very important to the nation's economic foundation and can be attributed to significant job growth. By measuring performance amongst Black SMEs, we can begin to learn significant information to help improve black businesses. Despite the increased growth of Black SMEs, Black business owners struggled to perform at high levels of peak performance and degrees of success, in comparison to majority SMEs. Important to the performance measures of Black entrepreneurs, Black firms experienced challenges when operating in turbulent business environments with increased competition, even though they tried relentlessly to enter the marketplace. Thus, Black SMEs fail at a considerably higher rate than other majority organizations and barriers to entrepreneurship for these groups remain. Census data indicate that the rates of entrepreneurial activity for Blacks lag significantly behind those for Whites (Strom, 2007). The study is designed to examine the constructs of entrepreneurial orientation, which is a firm's innovativeness, ability to be proactive, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy, and its impact on performance in a comparison of Black and majority SMEs. I also examined whether the constructs and their measurements can be used to identify literature that is useful and relevant to the needs and improvements important to high performance of Black SMEs."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: New routes to the African diaspora(s : locating 'Naija' identities in transnational cultural productions
Creator: Nwabara, Olaocha Nwadiuto
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Nigerian American Yvonne Orji–star of HBO Series Insecure–shared her self-defined expressions of her Nigerian Diaspora aka 'Naija' identity at a Breakfast Club online interview. She demonstrated her negotiation of her Nigerian and Black American identity, and in doing so reveals the multiplicity of her Black identity. The Nigerian Diaspora is increasingly producing normalized tropes in global Black popular culture, such as formulations of the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, and...
Show moreNigerian American Yvonne Orji–star of HBO Series Insecure–shared her self-defined expressions of her Nigerian Diaspora aka 'Naija' identity at a Breakfast Club online interview. She demonstrated her negotiation of her Nigerian and Black American identity, and in doing so reveals the multiplicity of her Black identity. The Nigerian Diaspora is increasingly producing normalized tropes in global Black popular culture, such as formulations of the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, and transnational music in the Afrobeat and Naija Mix genres. Cultural productions that come from these and other Nigerian cultural industries are being created and represented by members of the Nigerian "cultural" Diaspora all over the world. These cultural representations are mapped onto cultural artifacts (e.g. film, music, literature, television, food, clothing) are reflected back into diasporic communities when accepted by its members as having meaning and telling stories of their everyday experiences. Works like these are constitutive of a growing cohort and body of cultural productions emerging from the African Diaspora in the post-colonial era. Examples examined in the current dissertation study include the now famous Nigerian Diaspora representations conveyed in cultural productions such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, rapper Wale's "My Sweetie" and "The God Smile," Yewande Omotoso's Bom Boy, Akin Omotoso's Man on Ground, and Adze Ugah's Jacob's Cross to name a few. This dissertation is situated within the growing scholarly discourse about new African Diasporas through the prism of cultural diasporas. To guide the study theoretically, I draw from African Diaspora theorists such as Kim Butler, Isidore Okpewho, Paul Zeleza, Juan Flores, and Ruth Simms Hamilton as well as from Cultural Studies theorists Stuart Hall and Pierre Bourdieu to examine select Nigerian artists, their productions, and subsequent representations in the Nigerian Diaspora as cultural diasporas. I present these cultural productions of Nigerian diasporas as a way of examining the transformative and transnational identities (i.e. racial, ethnic, cultural) and community formations that are forged in the dialectical relationship between African homelands (Nigeria) and African Diaspora hostlands (the US and South Africa). In this dissertation, I argue that the social construction of the core identity formation of Nigerian Diasporas (Naija) has a purposeful and useful function for Nigeria in the world through its migrants Diaspora hostlands. The study shows the Nigerian Diaspora identity in this regard acknowledges and unifies Nigerians wherever they may be in the world and allows them to asserts an emotional attraction and belonging to the Nigerian homeland. The social construction of 'Naija' is used in this study as prism for interrogating issues facing Nigerian people in their respective diasporas, while also revealing the distinctive cultural life-styles that Nigerian Black immigrants bring and contribute to their hostlands. The research design focuses in on those primary components of the cultural diasporas–the experiences of the cultural producers (interviews and public talks) and the analysis of their cultural productions (literature, film, television, YouTube, music)–in order to extrapolate cultural representations of the Nigerian Diaspora communities in the United States and South Africa. The study aims to use this data to significantly contribute perspectives of how Nigerian Diasporic cultural identities and experiences are self-represented and exerted in global Diasporic communities, specifically in the racially and ethnic diverse nations of the United States and South Africa. Further, the dissertation examines how representations of self and community becomes decolonial tools for defining and asserting complex Black Diasporic identities and cultural formations.
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Title: “IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF African CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICA
Creator: George III, Clarence
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACT“IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICAByClarence George III This dissertation study (Imfundo) seeks to explore, the practice and evolution of African centered education at the Kara Heritage Institute from 2016 to 2019. This project seeks to study African centered education at Kara focusing on how the Heritage Institute instills notions of African consciousness, notions of Pan...
Show moreABSTRACT“IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICAByClarence George III This dissertation study (Imfundo) seeks to explore, the practice and evolution of African centered education at the Kara Heritage Institute from 2016 to 2019. This project seeks to study African centered education at Kara focusing on how the Heritage Institute instills notions of African consciousness, notions of Pan-Africanism, structural pedagogy, and culturally relevant pedagogy. This research project evaluated and observed African-centered education in South Africa at the Kara Heritage institute in Pretoria South Africa. Over 4 years of data collected has yielded a great deal of information about South Africa's unique approach to education, culture, and heritage restoration.
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Title: "Being in the center of the projects" : urban education, structural inequities, and provisional resistance
Creator: Gaines, Leah Tonnette
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Public education in Baltimore City, Maryland faces many structural inequities, several of which are due to the lingering remnants of historical factors. Interviewing some of the educational staff members of Baltimore City Elementary School (BCES), I found that this specific school experiences health and environmental, socioeconomic, and educational inequalities. Conscious of these concerns, school leaders, teachers, and community members have resisted such injustices. Ultimately, the data...
Show morePublic education in Baltimore City, Maryland faces many structural inequities, several of which are due to the lingering remnants of historical factors. Interviewing some of the educational staff members of Baltimore City Elementary School (BCES), I found that this specific school experiences health and environmental, socioeconomic, and educational inequalities. Conscious of these concerns, school leaders, teachers, and community members have resisted such injustices. Ultimately, the data yielded patterns of provisional resistance. While this resistance is empowering and meaningful, it remains a short-term fix, and fails to create long-term solutions to structural inequities. Provisional resistance is limited in its abilities to actually solve oppressions, and instead works as a Band-Aid to mask or cover the problem as a means of momentary survival. This form of resistance does not remove agency or power from marginalized groups of people, but instead refocuses accountability on outside forces, and calls for the dismantling of structures.
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Title: "Fight the power" : an exploration of the Black Student Activist Scholar
Creator: Quinney, Dominick Nelson
Date: 2014
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This dissertation explored the lived experiences of eight Black Student Activist Scholars on the campus of a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Through the use of Critical Race Theory, and Sociopolitical Development, it was discovered that Black students understand their activist and civic engagement to be that of a 'duty of knowledge' wherein students expressed the importance of raising social awareness amongst their peers, colleagues, and the larger campus community. Furthermore, their...
Show moreThis dissertation explored the lived experiences of eight Black Student Activist Scholars on the campus of a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Through the use of Critical Race Theory, and Sociopolitical Development, it was discovered that Black students understand their activist and civic engagement to be that of a 'duty of knowledge' wherein students expressed the importance of raising social awareness amongst their peers, colleagues, and the larger campus community. Furthermore, their lived experiences as scholar activists expanded their worldview of committing to social justice from a humanistic approach. Additionally, this dissertation is descriptive as well as prescriptive, as it highlights implications for Black Studies. -- Abstract.
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Title: Finding asylum : race, gender and confinement in Virginia, 1885-1930
Creator: Pumphrey, Shelby
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Finding Asylum is an institutional and social history that describes how the state of Virginia managed mentally ill African Americans at Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane between 1885 and 1935. As the nation's first asylum dedicated exclusively to the care of African Americans, Central was established in Virginia as the model southern, black asylum, an archetype that was replicated across the southern United States in the decades following the end of the Civil War. It reveals how...
Show moreFinding Asylum is an institutional and social history that describes how the state of Virginia managed mentally ill African Americans at Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane between 1885 and 1935. As the nation's first asylum dedicated exclusively to the care of African Americans, Central was established in Virginia as the model southern, black asylum, an archetype that was replicated across the southern United States in the decades following the end of the Civil War. It reveals how race and gender bias bled into psychiatric theory and practice at Central. It also provides a window into the lives of black Virginians who were committed and eventually confined to the institution. Finally, it tracks how raced and gendered understandings guided state imperatives to confine, treat and sterilize African American patients at Central.
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Title: Ojo Nro : an intellectual history of Nigerian women's nationalism in an umbrella organization, 1947-1967
Creator: Martin, Maria (Maria A.)
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Gender analysis must be further developed in histories of African nationalism and also African intellectual histories. Ojo Nro is an intellectual history that speaks to Nigerian women's ideological and practical contributions to the theory and practice of nationalism. It contends that Nigerian women articulated nationalism in a way that was distinct from the mainstream politically elite male forms. This assertion is assessed through an analysis of unrecognized tenets of their activism,...
Show moreGender analysis must be further developed in histories of African nationalism and also African intellectual histories. Ojo Nro is an intellectual history that speaks to Nigerian women's ideological and practical contributions to the theory and practice of nationalism. It contends that Nigerian women articulated nationalism in a way that was distinct from the mainstream politically elite male forms. This assertion is assessed through an analysis of unrecognized tenets of their activism, especially their non-political ideology and agenda. These elements, the non-political ideology and agenda, are discussed in great detail because they were the most striking of Nigerian women's expressions of nationalism and, as such, they constitute a large part of their theoretical and practical contributions to Nigerian nationalism.
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Title: Encountering Reform : Race, Power and the Unmaking of Detroit Public Schools
Creator: Rice II, Albert McKinley
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This dissertation traces the role of race and class politics in shaping educational governance in Detroit and the relationship between discourse and Black urban citizenship in the 21st century. Covering the period from 1990-2006, Encountering Reform argues that corporate and political elites discursively constructed Detroit Public Schools (DPS) as a “failed” district during the 1990s in order to justify and enable a series of market-based educational “reforms,” culminating in a state takeover...
Show moreThis dissertation traces the role of race and class politics in shaping educational governance in Detroit and the relationship between discourse and Black urban citizenship in the 21st century. Covering the period from 1990-2006, Encountering Reform argues that corporate and political elites discursively constructed Detroit Public Schools (DPS) as a “failed” district during the 1990s in order to justify and enable a series of market-based educational “reforms,” culminating in a state takeover of the district in 1999. Using documents from public and private institutions, speeches, newspaper articles, books, archival data from Wayne State University, and in-depth interviews, as well as the methods of institutional ethnography and content analysis, this dissertation illustrates how state takeovers represent a key mechanism racial capitalists use to maintain and legitimate their ongoing dispossession of poor and working-class African American communities. Black Detroiters resisted this linguistic and political takeover and rejected the narrative of DPS “failure.” In the first two chapters, I argue that the discourse of education “reform” was developed and mobilized by Governor John Engler, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and other white and Black elites to construct DPS as a “failed” district during the 1990s to extract wealth from low-income, Black communities and create a charter school market based on the recruitment of Black minds and the public dollars attached to them. However, in chapter three I demonstrate the various ways local residents in Detroit resisted the takeover and show how they constructed an alternative vision of “reform,” one predicated on a vision of DPS “success” and Black political autonomy.
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Title: Islam in Black Detroit : A Case Study
Creator: Maefield, Jajuan J
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study focuses on the beliefs and practices of African American Sunni Muslims at The Muslim Center: Mosque and Community Center in Detroit, Michigan. Through a case study, this project positions the cultural practices and the lived experiences of African American Muslims as central components of understanding their religiosity. I argue that the Muslim Center’s congregants practice a unique version of Islam that is not Arab-centric, Afrocentric, or African-centered, but rather rooted in...
Show moreThis study focuses on the beliefs and practices of African American Sunni Muslims at The Muslim Center: Mosque and Community Center in Detroit, Michigan. Through a case study, this project positions the cultural practices and the lived experiences of African American Muslims as central components of understanding their religiosity. I argue that the Muslim Center’s congregants practice a unique version of Islam that is not Arab-centric, Afrocentric, or African-centered, but rather rooted in the particularities of their collective lived experiences in the United States. This center informs the belief system of this community and serves as a recreational place, a social space, an educational facility, and a political sphere. This research interrogates the intersections of Africana Studies and Islamic Studies and how Black Muslim beliefs and practices have been marginalized in both fields.
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Title: "it's the feelings i wear" : black women, natural hair, and new media (re)negotiations of beauty
Creator: Rowe, Kristin Denise
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: At the intersection of social media, a trend in organic products, and an interest in do-it-yourself culture, the late 2000s opened a space for many Black American women to stop chemically straightening their hair via "relaxers" and begin to wear their hair natural-resulting in an Internet-based cultural phenomenon known as the "natural hair movement." Within this context, conversations around beauty standards, hair politics, and Black women's embodiment have flourished within the public...
Show moreAt the intersection of social media, a trend in organic products, and an interest in do-it-yourself culture, the late 2000s opened a space for many Black American women to stop chemically straightening their hair via "relaxers" and begin to wear their hair natural-resulting in an Internet-based cultural phenomenon known as the "natural hair movement." Within this context, conversations around beauty standards, hair politics, and Black women's embodiment have flourished within the public sphere, largely through YouTube, social media, and websites. My project maps these conversations, by exploring contemporary expressions of Black women's natural hair within cultural production. Using textual and content analysis, I investigate various sites of inquiry: natural hair product advertisements and internet representations, as well as the ways hair texture is evoked in recent song lyrics, filmic scenes, and non-fiction prose by Black women. Each of these "hair moments" offers a complex articulation of the ways Black women experience, share, and negotiate the socio-historically fraught terrain that is racialized body politics and "beauty" as a construct. My project is guided by the following research question: How are Black women utilizing the context of the natural hair movement to (re)define, (re)shape, and (de/re)construct meanings of beauty and Black womanhood? Using an embodied Black feminist framework, I argue that at the intersection of both (re)presentations of natural hair and uses of social/new media, we find new possibilities, intimacies, (re)negotiations, and (re)articulations of both Black women's embodiment and the potentiality of "beauty" as a construct. Ultimately, the project uses hair as a way to underscore the agency within Black women's uses and understandings of their bodies, in a cultural landscape that constantly tries to tell them who and what they are.
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