Imagining Home: Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora

by Sidney J. Lemelle

This collection of original essays brilliantly interrogates the often ambivalent place of Africa in the imaginations, cultures and politics of its “New World” descendants. Combining literary analysis, history, biography, cultural studies, critical theory and politics, Imagining Home offers a fresh and creative approach to the history of Pan-Africanism and diasporic movements. A critical part of the book’s overall project is an examination of the legal, educational and political institutions and structures of domination over Africa and the African diaspora. Class and gender are placed at center stage alongside race in the exploration of how the discourses and practices of Pan-Africanism have been shaped.

Other issues raised include the myriad ways in which grassroots religious and cultural movements informed Pan-Africanist political organizations; the role of African, African-American and Caribbean intellectuals in the formation of Pan-African thought—including W.E.B. DuBois, C.L.R. James and Adelaide Casely Hayford; the historical, ideological and institutional connections between African-Americans and South Africans; and the problems and prospects of Pan-Africanism as an emancipatory strategy for black people throughout the Atlantic.

Genres: Africa

382 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1994

Reviews

[Inem · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essays were interesting but most of them slightly missed the mark for me in the conclusions they drew. This collection brought me back to my college/ university days since these were the types of readings I might be assigned in an Africana Studies class. I do think it would have been more interesting to discuss these essays with a group but at the same time, none of them are quite important enough to read with a Pan-African group. I would rather collectively read Fanon or Cabral, for example, than debate over Ntongela Masilela's interpretation of Fanon or Cabral. The two essays that I found helpful for my own future research or projects were "Pan-Africanism and the Politics of Education: Towards a New Understanding" by William H. Watkins and "The Seventh Pan-African Congress: Notes from North American Delegates" by Watknins, Abdul Alkalimar and Marian Kramer. I also found the essays on Azania (South Africa) to be interesting as well as the essay on Adelaide Casely Hayford.

[Leonardo]

La cuestión de la “soberanía negra” es precisamente el tema central en la crítica que Cedric Robinson le hace al apoyo que W. E. B. Du Bois efectuó a Liberia en 1920 y 1930. Robinson cree que Du Bois ha apoyado acríticamente a las fuerzas de la soberanía moderna. Ver Cedric Robinson, “W. E. B. Du Bois and Black Sovereignty”, en Sydney Lemelle y Robin Kelley, eds., Imaging Home: Culture, Class and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (London: Verso, 1994), pp. 145-157.

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