On 6 June, Chris Lowe wrote:
>There does seem to be a strand of usage by some African
>intellectuals on the internet who want to re-appropriate the term to
>mean something like "indigenous collectivity, organized according to
>indigenous values and principles." Such a use has a lot of history
>to fight against.
Such re-appropriation and attempts at re-definition seems to be a general
characteristic of movements that are attempting to empower any group that
views itself as having been oppressed and shut out of the predominant
discourse. The most ready example - but by no means the only - within the
African milieu would be the negritude movement, which in the very name
itself began a re-appropriation.
It might be that the process of re-appropriating terminology is viewed as
the most expedient means by which a previously excluded group can insert
itself into the "conversation." It is, after all, all the baggage that
comes with the re-appropriated terminology that those excluded are fighting
against: the truly brave among us might say, why not take the bull by the
horns?