AphroChic Magazine: Issue No. 1

Reference
moments in African history, beginning
with the first human migrations out of
the continent. His suggestion being that
the existence of other examples of largescale
movement on the part of African
people means that, “there is no single
diasporic movement or monolithic
diasporic community to be studied.”
While it’s true that the global
migration of Africans predates the
trans-Atlantic slave trade, it’s difficult
and to ignore that the African Diaspora
as a concept is a direct development of
that particular dispersal, and more specifically,
of a long history of thought and
action aimed at dealing with the political,
social, moral, and economic ramifications
of that moment in human history.
And it is on that point that we can begin
to answer some of these questions.
The Question of Purpose
What is the African Diaspora for?
That is the right question. It’s right
because it puts every other question
we’ve asked in perspective. Nearly
every construction of diaspora as a
concept holds that the relationship
between dispersed populations and the
“homeland,” whether real or imagined,
is of vital importance to the category.
Yet few if any consider diaspora from a
functional standpoint.
Perhaps the best way to understand
the African Diaspora is not as a
state of being or a happenstance of historical
migration, but as a tool. The
African Diaspora isn’t simply the result
of voluntary or forced migration from
one continent to several. It is an analytical
structure formed out of a complex set
of ideas created by networks of thinkers,
creatives, groups, and movements
working both in concert and in contravention
to one another over hundreds of years.
Understanding the Diaspora in
this way makes several useful changes
to the way we approach the question
of defining it. First, it argues that the
creation of the Diaspora was not an incidental
consequence of dispersion, but
an intentional decision on the part of
those dispersed.
Second, it requires that the
Diaspora conform to the one criteria
that applies to all tools: that it was
created to do a job. And, like any tool,
understanding the African Diaspora is
in large part a matter of understanding
its process of manufacture and the
reasons for its construction. Once those
are ascertained, we can move on to the
only question that ultimately matters:
Does the African Diaspora still have a job
to do, or is it already obsolete?
This essay is the beginning of a
series that will address this question
by analyzing the African Diaspora from
the perspective of a tool. To do so, it
will trace the historical development
of the African Diaspora concept as an
emergence from the extensive tradition
of international Pan-Africanist thought
that preceded it through the various articulations
of the concept that have influenced
the use of the term today.
This series doesn’t claim to be exhaustive
in its survey of contributors
to Pan-Africanism or to the theory and
study of diaspora. Nor does it claim to
be authoritative about the nature and
uses of the concept. The goal here is to
begin a conversation, not end one. And
if it inspires us to do more and say more
to explore and strengthen the bonds
between our communities towards
functional and mutually beneficial ends,
then that would be nice too.
The work of Diaspora is not done,
but we can only reach a better understanding
of the potential uses of the
diaspora concept going forward by
more thoroughly understanding the
needs and processes that brought about
its emergence and the purpose for
which we currently need it. AC
aphrochic