In a lecture titled "Mapping Linkages Between Africa and its Diaspora: From Culture to Politics," Penn State Professor Paul Zeleza discussed his greater goal to "map out a dispersal of African peoples" as well as the relationships they have maintained with Africa.
A handful of students and faculty attended the lecture, which was held in the Remis Sculpture Court yesterday.
Implying that there are more than one of them, Zeleza said diasporas "are crucial in Africa's globalization."
Zeleza commented that there are "flows" between the diaspora and Africa, and that imagining, remembering and engaging the homeland is a "thread that weaves the diasporas together."
Such flows, he said, include demographic, ideological and political linkages.
He identified the main linkage as one that stretches across the Atlantic Ocean, between Africa and the Americas. Through the continents' linkage and U.S. black empowerment, use of the term "diaspora" became more pronounced.
"The term 'diaspora' only emerged in the 1950s and '60s, but existed across the world before then," he said.
Zeleza focused on three specific pathways - religion, music and education - that he said link Africa and its diaspora.
"Religion has always played a role in the lives of Africans," Zeleza said. He conceded that African religions have often been seen as those borne of protest or of oppression, but said that "of course, they are more than that."
While many perceive Africans as only practicing traditional religions, Zeleza said that Muslims were probably more numerous than any other group of arriving Africans during the four centuries of the slave trade.
"Many Muslims took leadership in their societies" in the diaspora, he said.
Music may be the strongest link between Africa and its diaspora, Zeleza said: "It is the primary medium of communication in the pan-African world."
Zeleza concluded with a discussion of education, which he said, above all, lets intellectuals travel throughout the diaspora.
"African students who don't return become part of it," he said.
