Afrodiasporic Identities in Germany : Life-Stories of Millennial Women.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wojczewski, Silvia.

Contributor:

Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Funder.

Series:

Kultur und Soziale Praxis Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women, Black--Germany.

Women, Black.

Africans--Germany--Social conditions.

Africans.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (269 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bielefeld : transcript Verlag, 2024.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Aminata Camara, Maya K., Lafia T., Oxana Chi and Layla Zami are middle-class, highly educated women in Germany and come from families of mixed African European heritages. This ethnographic study traces the coming of age as person of African descent in Germany born in the 1980s with a focus on the city of Frankfurt. Silvia Wojczewski follows the paths of five women and shows how the practice of travelling is used as a way to connect to transnational families and to an Afrodiasporic heritage. Zooming in on five lives, she reveals the ways in which class, diaspora and kinship relations influence how the women understand themselves and their position in the world.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Abstract

Resume

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

1. Introduction

Vignette 1: Afroeuropeans conference, July 2019

Vignette 2: On life‐story sharing at the Afroeuropeans conference, Lisbon, July 2019

Problem statement and research questions

Working with women

Aminata Camara

Maya B.

Lafia T.

Oxana Chi and Layla Zami

Nina M.

Life‐stories and anthropology: Between method and object of study

Family ethnographies

Positionality: Fieldwork 'at home' and 'on the move'

On the move: Research during leisure travel and conferences

Analytical approaches

An intersectional approach to class, race and gender

Kinship and diaspora

The intimate dimension of diaspora and kinship

The community dimension of kinship and the Black diaspora

Outline of chapters

Part I: Diasporic Generations

2. A history of African diaspora in Germany

The beginning and end of the first African diaspora (1880-1945)

African colonial subjects in Germany after World War I - the emergence of formal organisations

People of African descent under the Nazi regime (1933-1945)

African diaspora in West and East Germany (1945-1980)

African migration and diaspora organisation in Germany since the 1950s

American influences in Germany after World War II

US military occupation after World War II

The Civil Rights movement in Germany

Afrodiasporic organisations and representation in Germany up to the turn of the millennium

Conclusion

3. Growing up in Frankfurt

Situating Frankfurt

The US military presence in Frankfurt since 1945

Aminata Camara and Maya B. - Inspired by Black America

Aminata - Between Frankfurt and Conakry as a child

Maya - Living in a large Sierra Leonian family as a child

Aminata C. and Maya B. - Teenage years and GI club culture in Frankfurt.

Disenchantment with GI culture

Lafia T. - Growing up in a white and female world

Lafia's early childhood in Heidelberg and Frankfurt

Dealing with Senegal as a child

Being a teenager out of place - experiencing racialisation

Reluctance to deal with origins

4. Family affairs - an intergenerational approach to diaspora

Lamine Camara - Aminata's father

Going back to Guinea with his family

Forging a Black political consciousness and a West African identity

Towards identifying as West African

Father and daughter: Two practices of diaspora?

5. Racism and its intersection with class and gender

Learning to deal with it - racism and racialisation as part of the everyday

The eternal guest?

Two generations, two experiences of Germany

Conclusion to Part I

Part II: Diasporic Travel

6. Maya B.: Building Afrodiasporic identity through travel

Travelling in Afroeurope

London 2017 - Relating to Afrodiasporic subculture in Europe as an adult

Imagining Nigeria 2018

The entanglement of physical mobility with social class mobility

The link between mobility and personal happiness

Reality check: replacing a uniform imaginary with the complexity of reality

7. Lafia T.: The long journey to her father's land

Awakening interest in Senegal as a young adult

Roots travel to Senegal - May 2018

The role of family in roots travel

Motivation and experience with her father

Filling the void of an interrupted transmission

8. Aminata Camara: Negotiating privilege, kinship and care in diasporic travel

Forging kinship in Ghana - the importance of trust and care

The pool accident - kinship put to the test in an existential crisis

Acting respectable - caring and gendered division of labour

Community

Living with differences in a transnational family.

Conclusion to Part II

Diasporic travel and kinship

How class travels: experiencing a 'status paradox'

Practising cultural skills during diasporic travels

Part III: Diasporic Activism

9. Life storytelling as Black and feminist political practice

Origins and themes of life stories in Black movements

The Afro‐German movement in the 1980s

Ika Hügel‐Marshall

May Ayim

Connecting lives through stories

10. Oxana Chi and Layla Zami: Connecting to global Blackness on the move

Life stories in the lives and works of two artist‐activists

Oxana Chi - the use of biographies in her work

Layla - a cosmopolitan presentation of self

Practising community digitally and in mobility

Curating life stories at conferences

Taking time off from performing - self‐care

The Black activist self, couple and community in mobility

Conclusion to Part III

Forging diasporic identities across generations

Racialised middle classness - an intersectional approach

'Say their names' - listening to and sharing life stories

Travelling to connect or to practise cultural identity

Epilogue

Bibliography.

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9783839473412

3839473411

OCLC:

1450563678