Editors: Benjamin Talton (Temple University) and Quincy Mills (Vassar College)

We invite essay proposals from scholars and independent researchers in various disciplines that reflect upon the ways in which their personal encounters during fieldwork and experiences analyzing and writing on issues of race, ethnicity, gender and broader notions of belonging significantly shaped their understanding and value of the social, cultural and/or racial connections within and between Africa and the African diaspora

Race, gender, and belonging are not only at work out in the sugar fields of the Caribbean, fish markets in Africa, or the politics of reproductive rights in the United States, but also in the research field between the people who serve as the focus of scholarly research and the scholars who themselves often become sites of social inquiry. These interactions have produced many untold narratives about the meanings of blackness, belonging and difference in Africa and the African diaspora. These narratives carry the potential to provide greater insight into lived experiences within local communities and the social value of scholarly research than the books and articles that grow out of the more formal research methodologies in which we are trained.

Each essay proposed for this anthology should take as its central focus the intersection of research methods and notions of belonging that are brought to and exist within the communities that are the focus of the scholars’ research. We intend for this anthology to produce an interdisciplinary conversation that posits a more dynamic process of scholarly production on Africa and its diasporas and offers new perspectives on the research and realities of race and belonging.

We are interested in a wide-range of analytical themes and questions that include but are certainly not limited to the following:

• Are there particular challenges that scholars of color encounter researching communities of color, particularly those such as foreign-born Ghanaians, South Africans, Brazilians, etc, who are now beginning in large numbers to do work on their “own” countries/societies?
• Are there particular ways in which gender and/or sexuality inform the research process in Africa or the African diaspora?
• How have globalization, internationalism, or transnational movements shaped notions of race and connections/disconnections in the field?
• What preconceived notions of race, gender, and belonging do scholars bring with them as they conduct research in various locales throughout Africa or the diaspora, and how different are these notions and meanings among local peoples?
• What new directions do your personal research narratives suggest for qualitative and quantitative research methodologies (oral history, ethnography, survey design, archival research) in Africa or the African diaspora?

Please submit a 400 word abstract and one-page CV by April 13, 2009. Previously published material will be considered. If the editors accept your abstract, final essays must be submitted by October 1, 2009. Please submit abstracts electronically to: Benjamin Talton (talton@temple.edu) and Quincy Mills (qumills@vassar.edu)