TY - JOUR

T1 - Moving in Circles

T2 - African and Black History in the Atlantic World

AU - Simonsen, Gunvor

N1 - Det drejer sig om et web-baseret tidskrift, og artiklen ligger i den undersektion, som hedder workshops/L’histoire atlantique de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique. Linket er her: http://nuevomundo.revues.org/index30467.html?lang=en#l-histoire-atlantique-de-part-et-d-autre-de-l-atlantique

PY - 2008

Y1 - 2008

N2 - The article examines the development of African diaspora history during the last fifty years. It outlines the move from a focus on African survivals to a focus on deep rooted cultural principles and back again to a revived interest in concrete cultural transfers from Africa to the Americas. This circular movement can be explained by a combination of elements characterizing African Atlantic and black Atlantic history. Among them is a lack of attention to questions of periodisation and change. Likewise, it has proven difficult to conceptualize Africa and America at one and the same time as characterized by cultural diversity and variation. Moreover, the field has been haunted by a tendency of moving to easily from descriptive evidence to conclusions about African identity in the Americas. A promising way to overcome these problems, it is suggested, is to develop research that focuses on single individuals and their Atlantic trajectories.

AB - The article examines the development of African diaspora history during the last fifty years. It outlines the move from a focus on African survivals to a focus on deep rooted cultural principles and back again to a revived interest in concrete cultural transfers from Africa to the Americas. This circular movement can be explained by a combination of elements characterizing African Atlantic and black Atlantic history. Among them is a lack of attention to questions of periodisation and change. Likewise, it has proven difficult to conceptualize Africa and America at one and the same time as characterized by cultural diversity and variation. Moreover, the field has been haunted by a tendency of moving to easily from descriptive evidence to conclusions about African identity in the Americas. A promising way to overcome these problems, it is suggested, is to develop research that focuses on single individuals and their Atlantic trajectories.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - mikrohistorie

KW - Historigraphy

KW - African Heritage

KW - Creolisation

KW - microhistory

KW - Africa

KW - America

KW - Atlantic World

KW - Early Modern

M3 - Journal article

JO - Nuevo Mundo - Mundos Nuevos

JF - Nuevo Mundo - Mundos Nuevos

SN - 1626-0252

ER -