The African Diaspora Defined
The African Diaspora is generally defined as the voluntary and involuntary movement of Africans and their descendants to various parts of the world during the modern and pre-modern periods.
It is a liberation movement where people of African descent celebrate their ancestral heritage and reclaim their power through voluntary migration, cultural production, and political engagement.
Furthermore, it challenges the Eurocentric narrative of Africans and their Diasporans as primitive victims of slavery and instead demonstrates African contributions to modernity. For example, scholar W.E.B. DuBois dreamed of an “Encyclopaedia Africana” that would contain knowledge about the history, cultures, and social institutions of people of African descent: of Africans in the Old World, African Americans in the New World, and persons of African descent who had risen to prominence in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
