A System for Studying African People, Places and Culture

Conceptual Categories:

• Social Structures: What is/are the social structures in which Africans being studied and discussed live? In other words, what specific social structure do the people live in at the time/space we are studying? Examples from this category include: Agrarian or urban African societies; networks and systems of capitalism, coercive labor, manufacturing or extraction-based enslavement resulting from intercontinental contact and settler colonialism; post-“emancipation,” direct or indirect-rule colonialism; regional and global contemporary socioeconomic formations (including contemporary service, information and/or knowledge-based economies), etc.
• Governance: How did the Africans being studied relate to each other and organize and develop protocols for internal interaction during this period and under the particular social structure they found themselves in and/or impacted by? Examples from this category include: family-based social formations, village-based networks and systems, state-based systems, extended continental African organizational networks, contemporary racialized communal formations (e.g. “experiential kin,” “maroon” formations), socio-political-cultural networks (e.g. Pan African or “Black” private and public spheres, “convened Black spaces”), etc.
• Ways of Knowing: What ways/views/senses (e.g. ideas about the nature, purpose, function and process of existence and being) did Africans develop to answer questions of existence and human behavior during the period being studied, and how did they use those ways to address fundamental issues of acquiring, verifying and passing on knowledge during this period? Examples from this category include: Ancient African (e.g. Nilotic) knowledge and education systems; Medieval African knowledge and education systems (e.g. Yoruba, Akan, Zulu, Ibo, Mande, Dinka, Bambara, Ki-Kongo, etc.), Contemporary (1500-present) Abrahamic African knowledge and education traditions (e.g. Sufism, Vodun, Santeria, Lukumi, Macumba, Candomblé, Obeah, Shango/Shouter/Spiritual Baptist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Afro-Baptist) derivative knowledge formations (e.g. voodoo, hoodoo, conjure, root work, laying-on-hands, et. al.), racialized knowledge and education traditions (e.g. formal Western-centered schooling and educational systems), etc.
• Science and Technology: What methods of studying natural phenomena and techniques for existing with nature were developed to understand and/or interact with the physical environment during this period and how did they affect Africans and others? Examples from this category include: Architectural inventions and interventions, animal husbandry, agricultural/crop development technology (e.g. rice, cotton, tobacco, etc.), manufacturing technology, etc.
• Cultural Meaning-Making: What cultural texts and practices (e.g. art, dance and/or inscriptions (literature/orature) did Africans create during this period to reflect and mark their specific experiences, memories and aspirations? Examples from this category involve broad valences of sacred/secular cultural practice among African people such as musical texts (e.g. Soca, Calypso, Blues, Ska, Reggae, Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, Pan, Rumba, Bomba, Afrobeat, et. al.), material art texts (e.g. sculpture, painting, architectural design, etc.), dance traditions (e.g. Tango, B-Boying and Girling, Line Dancing, Ring Shout, et. al.), visual artistic texts (e.g. Nollywood movies, Afro- US, Caribbean, Latin American, European cinema), etc.
• Movement and Memory: How did/do Africans preserve, connect and interpret memories of specific experiences? Examples from this category 10 include: Family, community and national origin narratives, rituals, totems, shrines and icons; “King Buzzard” narratives explaining initial capture for enslavement; “Folk” narratives explaining intra and inter-racial relations; Rituals of memory-preserving/convening Maroon spaces (e.g. family reunions, Emancipation Day, Juneteenth, Church and University “Homecoming” rituals), etc.; Narratives of contemporary “national” identity (e.g. nation-state continental African and Caribbean identity or African-origin populations in majority non-African nation-states, e.g. US, Europe, Latin America), etc.

Source: Subscription needed from Knarrative/Knubia. Instruction from Greg Carr, PhD., JD, Associate Professor