The New African Diaspora

Preface and Acknowledgments

Preface and Acknowledgments This volume of essays has emerged from a symposium held on April 7–8, 2006, by the Department of Africana Studies at Binghamton University. The meeting marked the tenth anniversary of a conference, held by the department in April 1996, which gave rise to a volume titled The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities, also published by Indiana University Press (1999). Whereas the earlier volume concentrated its attention on the fate of Africans forcibly relocated to the Americas and the Caribbean by enslavement, the present volume deals exclusively with the voluntary movements and relocations of Africans and peoples of African descent between the home continent and various parts of the western Atlantic. Whatever may be the common grounds between the old and the new diasporas, there are increasing signs of a global outlook in international relations today that needed to be addressed in the context of a conversation on the black experience across space and time. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of several individuals and units of Binghamton University toward our efforts in hosting the symposium from which this volume arose. The offices of the provost and of the dean of Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the university ’s Convocations Committee, offered funds that enabled us to subsidize the participation of scholars from far and wide at the symposium. We are deeply grateful for their help. Our departmental secretary, Barbara Kumiega , put a great deal of effort into ensuring the promptness and smoothness of various services provided by the department: accommodation, transportation , meals, equipment, meetings, etc. Barbara has now retired, and we offer her not only gratitude for some dozen years of outstanding service to the department but also our wishes for a restful and healthy retirement . We are also grateful to the following students for their help in making the symposium a success: Adeolu Ademoyo, Carlie Ferrera, Andrea Frohne, and Azuka Nzegwu. And we thank AfricaResource.com for hosting a website for the conference. ix ...