The Quality of Diaspora

I propose to return to the two inaugural intellectual events in African Diaspora Studies, a 1965 conference in Dar es Salaam and a 1979 conference in Washington, DC, in order to tease out how the original debates in those conferences helped form the contemporary study of the African diaspora. I pay especial attention to the question of the relationship between diaspora and nationalism, since the concept of the African diaspora was proposed and promoted at a key moment in the development of black nationalism as an ideology in North America and a practical concern in decolonizing Africa.