"Black folk here and there": Repositioning other(ed) African diaspora(s) in/and "Europexs"

Abstract

The story I will begin to recount is one that seeks to expand the way we think about African diaspora(s) in/and "Europe." Using broad brushstrokes, I will explore two compound problematics that stand in as distillations rather than crystallizations of relevant debates. First, why is it difficult to confine or define the African Diaspora in/and Europe, and what impact has the pioneering work of Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy had on the emergence of a dominant Anglophone Black [North] Atlanticist approach to African Diaspora Studies in Europe?1 Second, how might a reconceptualization of "new" transnational/extracolonial African diasporas offer a framework that unsettles the conceptual "tidiness"-as discursive formations-of "Europe," "Africa," and the "African Diaspora"?2 Finally, I will close with some polemical thoughts about potential impediments to proper diasporic dialogue "here and there." 3. © 2010 by Indiana University Press. All rights reserved.