Proposed edited volume:

Julius O. Adekunle and Hettie V. Williams

The interplay of ethnic, cultural, national, and “racial” identities in the contemporary African Diaspora has almost reached the level of crisis. It is difficult to identify the origins of many people with the “black” color. Globalization has ensured the increased movement of people of African descent around the world coming from such places as Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean; settling in places such as Canada and the United States. These sojourners of the contemporary African Diaspora are fighting to maintain control over the defining features of self and communal identities as they “clash” with American blacks over essentialist notions of blackness. Given that the most recent findings of geneticists, in regards to the meaning of race, socio-historical relationships in terms of human identities [particularly, racial, ethnic, and cultural] are now in the process of a profound reconfiguration. The emergence of a new American and global discourse on ethno-racial and cultural identity significantly shape notions of blackness in the contemporary African Diaspora. The proposed book will focus on questions such as: Is he black or black enough? What does it mean to be African American? What vestiges of an “African” culture survived the Middle Passage? Who is black? What role does gender and class play in this crisis and convergence of identities?

Papers that address the following themes will be accepted, but related topics will also be considered.

I. Africans of the Contemporary Diaspora
Nigerian Immigrants in the U.S.; West Indians; East Africans
II. Africans and African Americans
Africa and Black Identity in America; African/African American relations
III. Blackness in the Contemporary Diaspora
Afro-Latino; Black Puerto Ricans; Jamaican Americans; Haitians in the U.S.
Interested contributors should submit an abstract of 250 words to the editors by May 15, 2010. Deadline of receipt of papers is November 30, 2010.

All submissions and inquiries should be directed to ConvergingIdentities@gmail.com: