Autochthonomies: Transnationalism, Testimony, and Transmission in the African Diaspora

Description

In Autochthonomies, Myriam J. A. Chancy engages readers in an interpretive journey. She lays out a radical new process that invites readers to see creations by artists of African descent as legible within the context of African diasporic historical and cultural debates. By invoking a transnational African/diasporic lens and negotiating it through a lakou or ”yard space,” we can see such identities transfigured, recognized, and exchanged. Chancy demonstrates how the process can examine the salient features of texts and art that underscore African/diasporic sensibilities and render them legible. What emerges is a potential for richer readings of African diasporic works that also ruptures the Manichean binary dynamics that have dominated previous interpretations of the material. The result: an enriching interpretive mode focused on the transnational connections between subjects of African descent as the central pole for reader investigation. A bold challenge to established scholarship, Autochthonomies ranges from Africa to Europe and the Americas to provide powerful new tools for charting the transnational interactions between African cultural producers and sites. Cover Title Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. (Re)Presenting Racial Permeability, (Dis)Ability, and Racial (Dis)Affiliations 2. Autochthonomous Transfigurations of Race and Gender in Twenty-First-Century Transnational Genocid 3. Subjectivity in Motion: Caribbean Women’s (Dis)Articulations of Being 4. Autochthonomous Ambiguities: Travel, Memoir, and Transnational African Diasporic Subjects in (Post)colonial Contexts Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index Back cover