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The subject of this article is the réinscription of a new diaspora in the public sphere by which governments and multilateral institutions are mobilizing. The following argues that these kinds of mobilizations have had the effect of subverting traditional approaches to diasporic linkage that in African and African American studies have privileged trans-Atlantic slavery and its consequent social dislocations and led to the marginalization of other forced and voluntary diasporic linkages. As this article argues, one such movement often excluded from popular diasporic theories in the Black Atlantic region represents new types of economic linkages being deployed alongside various UN stakeholders and members of business communities of the Global South. These formations carry the mission of developing concrete goals to end global poverty through eradicating war and developing new diasporic projects that will accelerate economic growth in the South. The author calls for a rethinking of the contemporary processes that are at play in diasporic invocations of a post-9/ Il period and shows how the call for nationals abroad to invest in their "home" countries is being used to create new diasporic linkages. In this regard, the article introduces the notion of humanitarian diasporas in an effort to rethink transatlantic slavery as the central basis for conceptualizing the starting place of African diasporic theorizing in the North American Academy.
KEYWORDS: humanitarian diasporas, transnational mobilizations, rethinking diaspora
SPECTERS OF LOSS: RETHINKING THE FICTION OF DIASPORA
The concept of "diaspora"1 continues to be among the most controversial and evolving for scholars today. The journal Diaspora, edited by Khachig Tölölyan, which had a wide and successful circulation for over a decade, identified the term in relation to its larger semantic domain, including such words as "immigrant, expatriate, refugee, guest-worker, exile community, overseas community, ethnic community" (Tölölyan 1991:5;1996). Philosophia Africana: Analysis of Philosophy and Issues in Africa and the Diaspora, founded in 2001 and edited by philosopher Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, explored "pluralistic experiences of Africa and the Black Diaspora from both universal and comparative points of view,"2 fostering interdisciplinarity and intellectual engagements with African-descended communities. Both leading journals, international in scope and engagement, have elicited original and critical pieces that further interpellate diasporic traditions of thought.
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