Authentic African Identity Formation From the Diaspora: An Autoethnographic Study

• In Event: Identity, Ecology and citizenship

Description for Program

Yoruba researcher Toyin Falola (2022) offers that, “Autoethnography allows individuals to act as both researcher and subject…Autoethnographers have autonomy over their own story and what it represents for their culture.” In this presentation I will share how I have used autoethnography to interrogate diasporic African cultural identity formation, with my own search for a sense of belonging and an authentic cultural identity sitting at the center of the inquiry. I feel appreciative of the folks who have informed this conversation. I am talking about Dubois, his Souls of Black Folks (1903), and later his turn toward Africa and Africans globally. I am talking about Stuart Hall (1990) and his theorizing about two Africas and the effects of time and dispersal on diasporic oneness/sameness/difference. I have a particular appreciation for scholar Renata Ferdinand (2007), whose autoethnographic work around her experiences in Burkina Faso, Benin, and Ghana inspired me to access my own experiential data for the purposes of more congruently situating myself in my many worlds. Through analysis of data sources such as photos from travel to the Continent, transcripts from scholarly dialogue, reflections, and memory, I have come to a deeper understanding of what it means to form an authentic African identity while situated in the diaspora and while undertaking teaching and research in the academy.

Author

• Robert Graham