A global history of the African diaspora

Patrick Manning, a specialist in Africa’s history, is one of the pioneers in world history and global history. World history professor at the University of Pittsburgh and director of its World History Center (created under his leadership in 1994), author of the World History Manual Navigating World History (2003), he is president of the international world history network (World History Network). With this synthetic work, he addresses what since the 1950s have been called the Black Studies. This current developed in the United States from the years 1960-1970, in connection with the civil rights movement ; The first department of Black Studies was created in 1968 in San Francisco, under the aegis of sociologist Nathan Hare. THE “ Black Studies ” (Or “ Afro-American Studies ) Intend to study the history and culture of blacks worldwide, and their interactions with the rest of society.

Manning’s approach is part of the heritage of the concept of “ Black Atlantic “Developed from 1993 by the British sociologist Paul Gilroy. This expression designates a place of exchanges and transnational links, through which are constantly constructed and transform the black cultures. The idea of ​​” African diaspora Brought by Manning is taken over from Gilroy, who had thought of the diaspora as a space of mobility, fluidity and hybridity, and not only as a community conscience and as a memory of the land of origins. Like Gilroy, Manning wants to criticize the dominant historiography which has ignored or despised the role of this black Atlantic. He intends to revalue this space and his role as a place of birth of hybrid counter-cultures, which participate in the construction of modernity.

The notion of “ African diaspora »Illustrates the idea that African or African peoples have, at different periods, willingly or by force, migrated to other continents (Europe, Americas, Asia) and were established there. This notion implies the idea of ​​a common starting place, which is Africa. The concept of diaspora, conventionally used to designate the Jewish diaspora or the Chinese diaspora, was used to qualify the descendants of Africans, before Manning, by civil society (associations, networks). This expression is also used in France by specialists in African history, such as François Durpaire and Christine Chivallon. However, she was able to arouse controversy. Establish a parallel with the Jewish diaspora presupposes that there is unity of the diaspora ; However, there were in fact several origins and several waves. It is perhaps in the link between the African and American movements of emancipation that the concept of “ diaspora Find its justification.

A global and global approach

Patrick Manning’s approach owes as much to world history as in global history, two currents close to each other but which do not overlap. World history refers above all to a totalizing will, an opening to a very wide space-time framework, while global history refers more specifically to globalization (“ globalization In English), that is to say a phenomenon of increased interactions and interrelations between the different parts of the world. If all researchers are far from agreeing on the time of the beginning of globalization, we often hear by this word a phenomenon which has accelerated for a few decades, under the effect of two factors: technological progress in The field of information and communication technologies and communication technologies, and the acceleration of economic liberalization, gradually extended to the whole world. The concept of global history also implies that we are not only interested in state actors, but in all non-state actors, transnational, such as experts, private foundations, transnational firms, civil society.

One of the innovations in Manning’s work, compared to that of Gilroy, is to approach the history of African peoples on a global scale: it is not only interested in the Atlantic area but in the world whole, Asia included (unlike Gilroy who only apprehended the Atlantic frame). For him, it is a question of studying several regions and nations in parallel, and in long time: from 1400 to the present day. It presents the evolution of the history of Africans and peoples of African descendants, a large ensemble which today represents 1/6^e of humanity. In six dense chapters, he paints a painting of the evolution of these peoples over the long time, by releaseing major stages, such as “ survival “(1600-1800), the conquest of” emancipation “(1800-1900), of the” citizenship “(1900-1960), and finally” legality (1960-2000). The treated geographic area is also very large: it extends not only to the African continent, but also to the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Manning seeks to identify connections that have led Africans to forge a sense of belonging. The global approach allows it to highlight links between phenomena previously studied in a separate manner. For example, it shows how, in the middle of the XIX^e A century, slavery was denounced concomitantly in North America, South, West Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and India.

There “ breed », A controversial notion

Manning, although clearly posing that “ races “Do not exist in the biological sense of the term, however uses this term, because he believes that the concept of” races There is a simple fact that it is used by human societies. The breed has no basis as a biological category, but, for Manning, it has relevance as a constructed social category. The author then asked an important question: “ repairs Should they be granted to the descendants of slaves and colonized for the past injustice suffered by their ancestors ? This is a difficult question to decide: who would pay how much and to whom ? Manning recalls, however, that such payments have sometimes taken place in the other direction: Haiti paid France 25 million francs-or, decades after its independence, to compensate French planters. It also argues that following the Shoah the RFA and the Gouve have paid financial repairs to the State of Israel.

Manning is closely interested in struggles and social movements. His work nourishes the reflection started in France by the work of Didier and Éric Fassin in 2006 with From the social question to the racial question. He shows that the two questions are linked and underlines the permanence and the importance of the “ social question ». His reflections also echo the recent work of Pap Ndiaye on the “ black condition ». After studying the black struggle for emancipation at XIX^e A century, it approached that for citizenship from 1900 to 1960, and that for equality from 1960 to the present day. He underlines the driving role played, in these struggles, by the various communist parties and by the international communist movement from 1920: they stimulated and organized the social struggle of blacks for the recognition of their political, economic and social rights. He underlines the role of black communist activists, and highlights the role of unionism, especially from the 1930s (during the global global depression). The major Pan -African meetings, such as the Pan -African Conference of Manchester in 1945, made it possible to internationalize the mobilization. This global vision allows Manning to draw a parallel between the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and the great movement, concomitant, of decolonization of Africa.

In his panorama of the social history of the African diaspora, the author identifies highlights, moments of progress and change, like the 1960s, and moments of reflux, backwards, like the 1980s under The effect in particular of conservative governments then in place in the United States and the United Kingdom. It also identifies a new step forward in the 1990s with the elimination of apartheid in South Africa, and with the Constitution adopted by this country in 1996, theoretical model of democracy and guarantee of social equality. Observing that the accession of blacks to citizenship in the 1960s (decolonization in Africa and civil rights movement in the United States) did not coincide with their accession to equality in practice in relation to whites, he underlines the ‘Emergence of new struggles for the conquest of real equality between black and whites. Indeed, as it illustrates by precise quantitative data (statistics on the rate of education, the social level, and the infection by AIDS, blacks and whites), strong economic and social inequalities persist Today between blacks and whites, despite theoretical equality in law. The current major issue is therefore now, according to Manning, more a social question than a racial question.

An essentialist vision ?

Manning believes that beyond the diversity of the cultures of black peoples, there is a coherence and a meaning to the cultural production of the “ diaspora African. This leads him to study the unity and diversity of the cultural productions and expressions of blacks over time. Throughout the book, he endeavors to show the cultural advances allowed by the black communities. Creating themselves as a group, the blacks have, according to him, created a true transnational identity, based on a great liveliness of cultural creation, particularly since the end of XX^e century in the field of “ Visual Arts ». However, this vision includes a risk of essentialism. As did in his time Aimé Césaire with the concept of “ negritude “, Manning seems to suggest that there would be certain characteristic features specific to” Black »: A great creativity, artistic, technological qualities, the sense of the community, of the” community “, And resistance and fighting spirit against oppression. Are these characteristics not in reality attributable to all human groups ? In his conclusion, Manning addresses the dilemma between universality and cultural diversity. Would the accession of blacks to real equality compared to whites lead to the loss of cultural diversity, by a “ normalization “From” black culture “, Which would line up with standards” whites »» ? No, he replied, because the black community continues to cultivate and develop its social and cultural identity.

Written in a very clear way, this work summarizes many recent works. Each end of the chapter is embellished with a rich commented bibliography. His theses are always justified and illustrated by precise and concrete examples. He brews a large amount of information, and succeeds in presenting it so as not to drown the reader under the mass, on the contrary aging them very intelligently in order to create meaning by relevant rapprochements, between phenomena occurred in Very different geographic areas. Above all, he poses original and stimulating questions. This book greatly contributes to popularizing the contributions of Black Studiestransnational history, world history, and Cultural Studies.