Africana Studies Commons^™

The Heart Is Never In Question (Collected Poems), Michael Issac Bethel

Writing Beyond the Prison Living Archive

Poetry on Identity/Self-determination

Untitled, Mark Barney

Writing Beyond the Prison Living Archive

Social Justice Autobiography on the topics of: Racial consciousness; Black Panthers; Nation of Islam; Race; Personal responsibility; George Jackson; Angela Davis; California Department of Corrections; Social Justice; Political consciousness

Untitled, Tyler Anerson

Writing Beyond the Prison Living Archive

Essay on Foster care; social workers; police brutality; community belonging

Them, John Adams

Writing Beyond the Prison Living Archive

Reflective essay on Homelessness; Military Service; Social Inclusion/Exclusion; Race; Social Invisibility

Untitled, Tyler Anserson

Writing Beyond the Prison Living Archive

Social Justice Autobiography on the topics of: Foster care; social workers; police brutality; community belonging

A Contribution To The Preservation And Revival Of The Cabo Verdean Pano D’Obra Textiles, Maggy Fragoso

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textiles from Cabo Verde were highly prized for trading along the West African coast, from the second half of the 16^th century to the end of the 18^th century. They originated from the fusion of different cultural sources making their design visually distinct from the other textiles of West Africa: slave weavers were taken to Cabo Verde by the Portuguese and with their characteristic narrow strip looms, which had to be adjusted, were made to weave textiles with North African patterns and Christian references.

From the 19^th century, a marked decline in the manufacture of these historic …

How To Wear A Queen’S Crown ; From Slavery (17th Century) To 1990s, Ka-Mya Frye

ASPIRE 2024

There are six hairstyles I chose to feature in this project that embody a story with culture to be told about the hardships African American women in the US have faced up until almost the present day. I believe it will be a fun learning experience, not only for me but other African American women, potentially looking for some cultural hairstyles and learning about their “crown’s” history. A couple of styles that stood out from the age of slavery to the 1990s were cornrows, dreads, Bantu/Zulu knots, and the afro. I will discuss the history of these styles along with …

Playing Changes: Music As Mediator Between Japanese And Black Americans, E Taylor Atkins

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

Since the mid-twentieth century, music has played a central role in encounters and interactions between the people of Japan and those of African descent. It proved far more effective for pro- moting interracial dialogue and understanding than efforts in the early 1900s to foster an alliance against white supremacy and imperialism. This essay unpacks the ways that encounters with Black music transformed Japanese musicking and generated knowledge and empathy for people of African descent among Japanese. Personal interactions between Black and Japanese musicians constituted a process of “grassroots globalization” that circumvented the dominance of American mass media in representing African …

The Capacity Of An Unfaltering Duress: America's Lost Love Stories, Seth Shimmelfarb-Wells

English Honors Papers

This thesis interrogates the imbrication between negative subjectivity and the fiction writing of Gayl Jones. In doing so, this work reimagines conceptions of intimate and interpersonal love, community, and retributive violence in the face of conditional (anti)Blackness. Through an engagement with contemporary scholars of Black Studies and with the help of the abundant archive of Black music, this project aims to prioritize, reproduce, and heed to Black Artistic registers of feeling that embrace duress, destruction, and madness. Through her literary performance, Jones reproduces and fabulates moments of Black social life that expand and simultaneously shatter our conception of a given …

Gny Rary Tsihy Tsy Enganay (‘We’Re Not Leaving The Mat Weaving’): Transitions Of Craft Practice In Southeast Madagascar, Sarah Emily Brown

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In Sainte Luce, southeast Madagascar, livelihoods are in a state of transition due to climate change, deforestation, shifting local economies and globalisation. Activities passed on by the ancestors are not sufficient to meet everyday needs. In 2012, embroidery was introduced by an NGO as an alternative to the ancestral process of reed-weaving due to declining reed populations. Embroiderers have now formed a 100-strong independent cooperative.

My PhD fieldwork (2017-2019) explored the multifaceted dimensions of change for these craftswomen. In addition to the practicalities of mastering a new craft, they have renegotiated collaborative working patterns, obligations to kin and ancestors, flows …

Mc Means Mentor The Child: Examining School-Based Hip-Hop Clubs For Youth Empowerment, Leadership Development, And Capacity For Change, Daniel Wolford

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

This dissertation examined the relationship between students in a school-based hip-hop club and their ability to develop leadership capabilities through club activities. This study followed a hip-hop club at an urban high school in the Midwest to better understand how hip-hop spaces impact youth participants. The participants included four current members of the club and three alums, all of whom were African American. This study used qualitative methods through heuristic inquiry to understand the phenomenon of hip-hop clubs. Data collection methods included session notes, musical creations, semi-structured interviews, and a Microsoft Teams group chat. Additional heuristic data was collected through …

The Movie Is On!: Pragmatics Of The Video Joker In Who Killed Captain Alex?, Hunter Hulett

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

The film Who Killed Captain Alex? (WKCA) is a Ugandan film that provides an opportunity to examine the use of pragmatic and specifically deictic features to study the manipulation of borders between the film and reality. A commentator called the Video Joker (VJ) is the film’s deictic center, constantly destabilizing deictic relations and orienting the internal and external pragmatics of the film around themself. As the film’s ultimate pragmatic force, they occupy a position blurring diegesis and non-diegesis due to originating as real-time film commentators before being edited into the text. In this unique position, they shift the deixis’s organization …

Confronting Yanqui Racismo: The Cuban Revolution And The (R)Evolutionary Radicalization Of Amiri Baraka, Ariane Ribeiro Santana

Theses and Dissertations--History

This study examined the July 1960 trip to Cuba financed by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the Cuban cultural center Casa de las Américas, in which the Black poet and activist Amiri Baraka took part. Diving into his experiences in Cuba and his later writings, it is possible to conceive of diaspora as an interaction that is based not only on race, but on points of common oppression, as seen between Baraka and the African American delegation he joined in 1960 and the Cuban society he engaged with during the trip. This work therefore furthers the field of …

“We Gon’ Be Alright”: How Resiliency & Africultural Coping Behaviors Factor Into African American College Students’ Intentions To Seek Mental Health Services, Taylor Garland

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Background: African Americans, apprehension toward utilizing mental health services (MHS) has a long history in the United States. The low rates of utilizing MHS can result in detrimental health consequences, both mental and physical, despite there being a developing literature base on how evidence-based treatments are effective in therapy with African Americans.

Objective: There is expansive literature on several factors (e.g., stigma, cultural mistrust) that contribute to African Americans’ hesitancy concerning seeking MHS. The current study aimed to add to this literature base. Specifically, this study sought to acknowledge both African American college students’ choices to use alternative coping strategies …

Adrian Wisnicki’S One More Voice: A Review, Akua Agyeiwaa Denkyi-Manieson

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A review of Adrian Wisnicki’s One More Voice.

Adrian Wisnicki's One More Voice website, accessible at https://onemorevoice.org/, is a valuable resource for scholars and students of digital humanities, particularly those interested in African studies. The website is designed to facilitate the exploration and analysis of texts related to African history and literature. As part of a digital humanities course in the spring of 2023, I had the opportunity to engage with the website, which serves both as a repository of information and as a platform for educational activities, such as text analysis and website creation. One More Voice …

Spatial Degradation And Livelihood Diversification In The Ever-Changing Landscape Of Pastoralist Kajiado, Kenya, John A. Paine

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The study centers on both internal and external pressures on Maasai communities, such as environmental changes and socio-economic shifts, all of which are rapidly changing. It further examines the historical colonial context in Kajiado that has led to spatial degradations - a decline in an objective geographic area's function, usage, or ecological health. Such degradation has taken on different forms based on varying cultural, environmental, and livelihood-centered understandings and motivations. Understanding this is particularly important to investigation of how the cultural identity of the Maasai shapes realities and informs decisions about livelihoods. This idea is especially relevant when, out of …

“Just Holding That Space”: Using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy To Create Counterspaces For Black College Students In Aanapisi/Hsi Classrooms, Nicholas B. Lacy, Yea-Wen Chen, Damariyé L. Smith

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Black college students continue to face the specter of anti-Blackness which creates additional barriers to success and flourishing in higher education. This study investigates how instructors in higher education can provide racial equity to Black students in AANAPISI/HSI classrooms through counterspaces. We use culturally relevant pedagogy to investigate the experiences of 21 Black college students at an AANAPISI/HSI to understand better how higher education instructors can utilize counterspaces, places where Black college students can challenge dominant discourses and create a collegial learning environment. We identified three counterspace themes: (1) Mitigate Eurocentric Pedagogy, (2) Employ Black and Critical Scholarship, and (3) …

Beyond Borders: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of International Migrant Women In Nigeria, A Deep Dive Into Healthcare Realities And Utilization, Juliet Nwafor, Rowland Edet, Ezebunwa Nwokoch

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study explored access to and utilization of healthcare facilities among migrant women in an urban slum community in Nigeria, focusing on factors influencing healthcare-seeking behaviors and the implications for public health interventions. A qualitative case study-oriented research design was employed, involving in-depth interviews with 21 migrant women of reproductive age and 4 key informant interviews with healthcare workers in the Ayobo community of Lagos State, Nigeria. Data collection occurred from June to September 2018, and thematic analysis was used to interpret the findings. Three main themes emerged: living conditions, pattern of healthcare utilization, and factors influencing accessibility and utilization …

“Why Blackness, Black Girl?:” Discovering Multilocal Blackness In Wonderful Adventures Of Mrs. Seacole In Many Lands And Americanah, Sydney A. Ware

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In “Why Blackness, Black Girl?” I argue that as a consequence of imperialism, Western Blackness has an interdependent relationship with whiteness, resulting in the domination of Western Blackness over non-Western Blackness. Tensions between both groups are usually portrayed by Western media as divisive. I pose Multilocality as a theory to reconcile this tension. I use Taiye Selasi's concept of the multilocal, and her Three Markers (3 R’s) to identify where hybridized identities are local to and how they can connect to each local space. I expand Selasi’s concept into a theory called Multilocality, and added a fourth marker that I …

Deep Roots, New Shoots: Modern And Contemporary African Art From The Kam Collection, Charles Mason, Andie Near

Kruizenga Art Museum Exhibition Catalogs

Kruizenga Art Museum, Hope College Catalog for the exhibition: Deep Roots New Shoots: Modern and Contemporary African Art from the KAM Collection. Exhibition dates: January 12 – May 18, 2024. Charles Mason, author. Andie Near, photographer, designer.

Kruizenga Art Museum Online Collection - Exhibition Gallery