African Disapora Studies

Women Merchants and Slave Depots: Saint-Louis, Senegal and St. Mary's, Madagascar

by Wendy Wilson-Fall

In 'Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. Ana Lcia Araujo, Cambria Press 2011, pp 273-305

The lives of eighteenth-century women merchants in Saint-Louis, Senegal and in St. Mary's, Madagascar, both coastal... more The lives of eighteenth-century women merchants in Saint-Louis, Senegal and in St. Mary's, Madagascar, both coastal ports, are locally remembered as cosmopolitan, elegant, and sophisticated - but perhaps they are also remembered as predataory and cruel. This text explores the issues of gender, ethnicity, and kinship as they may have affected the role of women slave merchants in Madagascar at St. Mary's island, and in St. Louis, Senegal. The chapter postulates what their social networks may have been and what effects the women had on local views of material extravagance and women's agency.

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred: Diasporic Territorialization and Charismatic Power in a Transnational Congolese Prophetic Church

by David GARBIN

published in

Hüwelmeier, G. & Krause, K. 2010 (eds): Traveling spirits: migrants, markets and mobilities. London: Routledge.

Happy to send the full version on request

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred
Diasporic... more Happy to send the full version on request

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred
Diasporic Territorialization and Charismatic Power in a Transnational Congolese Prophetic Church
David GARBIN


This chapter examines the relationship between migration, transnational religion, and the territorialization/reterritorialization of diasporic identities, taking as a case study the Kimbanguist Church, one of the largest “African-initiated” Christian churches. Initially a prophetic renewal movement led by Simon Kimbangu among the Bakongo people of the then Belgian Congo, Kimbanguism now has a strong presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville and Angola (Mokoko Gampiot 2004; Mélice 2006; Sarró, Blanes, and Viegas 2008). As a result of the development of a Congolese diaspora in Europe and North America, Kimbanguism has progressively acquired a transnational dimension. It is against this backdrop of transnationalization that I wish to examine a set of issues related to the socio-spatial experience of the sacred among Kimbanguists in diaspora. How are religious identities and power dynamics produced or reproduced in new diasporic set- tings? What is the role of transnational ties in generating a sense of religious diasporic belonging? How is space sacralized in diaspora? Another dimension that I wish to explore with reference to the Kimbanguist church relates to the “schismatic universe” of internal tensions and ecclesiastical conflicts. How are these tensions and conflicts negotiated across different diasporic scales?

My analysis will draw on data collected during fieldwork in London among the Kimbanguist community, mainly composed of Congolese migrants, and during field visits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2007 and 2008. My overall focus in this chapter will be on the construction of what I shall call “symbolic geographies of the sacred” among diasporic Kim-banguists. These symbolic geographies of the sacred relate to the ways in which worshippers and religious experts/leaders define, produce, or imagine translocal fields of religious presence, flows, and mobility. While the pro cesses of physical or symbolic place-making and territorialization are integral to the constitution of these geographies, I wish to consider how a “diasporic sense of place” challenges fixed notions of territory and territorial identity. Indeed as Brenner (1999) argued this notion of territory often conveys ideas of timelessness, boundedness or “State-centrism”. Tarrius (2000, 2002) has provided a useful alternative analytical framework for the study of territori-alization through an exploration of transmediterranean diasporic networks. He shows how territories crystallize a creative tension between local spaces and global processes, between rootedness and mobility, between the realms of materiality (urban spaces or trade networks for example) and symbolic systems of meaning (such as diasporic consciousness or collective memory). According to this perspective, mobility and circulation shape deterritorialized spaces, and localities are reinterpreted by transmigrants as hybrid “homes” through both transnational networks and global “imagined communities”.
In addition to the multi-layered and “glocal” dimension of territorialized processes, the second important element to consider in the making and remaking of these geographies is the role played by the sacred. While this realm of the sacred is essential to the production of a Kimbanguist identity, especially in the diasporic context, it is also closely associated with power dynamics. Debates around the legitimacy of certain spiritual manifesta- tions and politico-charismatic authority are bound up with tensions over a sacred Kimbanguist body/space matrix. For many Kimbanguists, this body/ space matrix relates to an ideal organization of the church and a particular prophetic embodiment and territorialization. Thus, integral to this is the charismatic authority of the spiritual leader (chef spirituel) who embod- ies the Molimo Mosanto (Holy Spirit) and who has the power to regulate the use of spiritual gifts. While the centralized structure of the church, inspired by the missionary model, eroded from the mid-70s, partly due to the emergence of prayer circles and retreats (beko) as Mélice (2001) pointed out, the “centering” of Nkamba, the Holy City of Kimbanguism, remains an essential component of the contemporary Kimbanguist ethos (Eade and Garbin 2007). Nkamba, the main place of pilgrimage for Kimbanguists, is where Simon Kimbangu was born and where the current spiritual leader of the church resides. There is a sacralization of Nkamba associated with this presence of the spiritual leader of the church, one of the grandchildren of Simon Kimbangu, but the symbolic and spiritual power of the Holy City (Mbenza Velela) is also deeply rooted in a temporal and spatial Bibli- cal dimension, the “New Jerusalem”. As we shall see, this dimension has acquired a specific meaning in the post-colonial context, with the emer- gence of both a Pan-African vision and a particular collective memory.

The maintenance of a prophetic model, mainly through a ritualistic con-tinuity between the center and the (sometimes emerging) peripheries, is a key issue shaping contemporary symbolic geographies of Kimbanguism. However, tensions and conflicts over charismatic authority, ecclesiastic legitimacy and the sacred Kimbanguist body/space matrix have also played a role in the (re)configuration of these geographies.

Mis-taken identity: being and not being Asian, African and British

by Karim Murji

This article offers an auto/biographical approach to understanding the links between transnational migration,... more This article offers an auto/biographical approach to understanding the links between transnational migration, citizenship and identity. It explores the relationship between fixed and fluid identities in the lives of migrants through consideration of a puzzle about essentialised identities in the form of 'roots' against more plastic identities in the form of 'routes'. Both the appeal of and some problems with this dichotomy are discussed. Drawing on personal and familial auto/biography, the paper delves into the identities of East African Asians and their capacity to both be and not be African, Asian or British at different times and places. The key argument is that felt and ascribed identities operate in uneven ways that are not reducible to matters of personal choice or structural determination. The context of the discussion and the examples used are intended to underline the key intervention this article aims to make – the enduring significance of being racially or ethnically marked as Asian as the process by which identity is, or can be, reduced into a singular form.

Community, Media, and Black Intellectual Paranoia-as-Politics

by Anthony C. Cooke

Journal of Black Studies 42.4 (May 2011)

Fear of a Black Israel: African Representations in Israeli Cinema

by Sharon Joseph

Black centered films from the various parts of the African Diaspora are rarely exhibited or released on DVD in other... more Black centered films from the various parts of the African Diaspora are rarely exhibited or released on DVD in other parts of this global community due to the current state of media distribution.  African cinema garners top awards at international film festivals, but their art film status does not translate into wider distribution that could reach an African American, Black Latino or Afro-European audience.