The Akan diaspora in the Americas / Kwasi Konadu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Konadu, Kwasi.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Akan (African people)--America--History.

Akan (African people).

Akan (African people)--Migrations.

Akan (African people)--Social life and customs.

Akan (African people)--Social conditions.

Ethnic relations.

History.

America--Ethnic relations.

America.

African diaspora.

Africa, West--Social life and customs.

Africa, West.

West Africa.

Manners and customs.

Physical Description:

xii, 307 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2010.

Summary:

In his groundbreaking study of the Akan diaspora, Konadu demonstrates how this cultural group originating in West Africa both engaged in and went beyond the familiar diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, ad freedom. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never formed a majority among other African in the Americas. But their leadership skills in war and political organization, efficacy in medicinal plant use and spiritual practice, and culture archived in the musical tradition, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far outweighed their sheer numbers. Konadu argues that a composite Akan culture calibrated between the Gold Coast and forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. The book examines the Akan experience in Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados former Danish and Dutch colonies, and North America, and how those early experiences foreground the modern engagement and movement of diasporic Africans and Akan people between Ghana and North America. Locating the Akan variable in the African diasporic equation allows scholars and students of the Americas to better understand how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still evolving. Book jacket.

Contents:

On diaspora and the Akan in the Americas

Quest for the river, creation of the path : Akan cultural development to the sixteenth century

History and meaning in Akan societies, 1500-1800

"The most unruly" : the Akan in Danish and Dutch America

The antelope (adowa) and the elephant (esono) : the Akan in the British Caribbean

"All of the Coromantee country" : the Akan diaspora in North America

Diaspora discourses : Akan spiritual praxis and the claims of cultural itendity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780195390643

0195390644

OCLC:

403853802