African Diaspora, Genetics and Genealogy

The African diaspora has become a most vibrant area of research and teaching interest across the disciplines in the last decade in the American academy. Institutional units or sub-units dedicated to African diaspora studies have multiplied across universities, and scholarly books, journals, special issues of journals, and articles have been and continue to be published on the topic. There are, additionally, two related and quite significant developments, one of which is entirely new: (1) the application of discoveries in the science of genetics to the historically vexed scholarly issue of where specifically in Africa the ancestors of particular diaspora Africans might have come from, and (2) the surprise of a popular African American interest in the issue. Both of these—the latter, especially—have led to a cottage industry of DNA testing companies targeted at African Americans promising to scientifically help them trace their roots. So in addition to scholarly publications, there are now popular video series explaining the DNA testing process itself and its possibilities, as well as tracing the genealogies of notable African Americans, for education and entertainment. There is the Takeaway Media Production’s famous Motherland series (Motherland: A Genetic Journey and Motherland: Moving On) broadcast by the BBC in 2003. Revealingly, the series is employed as a promotion by a testing company named, without irony, Roots For Real: Your Ancestry Discovered. Its website, listing costs both of film and tests, earnestly advises visitors to “[c]hoose the BBC film for a pioneering example of our DNA service.” But perhaps the most well-known series is African American Lives, made by the Harvard professor of African American Studies, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and first broadcast by the PBS in 2006. No doubt because of its popularity, a sequel, African American Lives 2, is scheduled for showing this February (2008). And that is in addition to Gates’s recent launching of a Washington Post-supported online magazine, theroot.com, unabashedly linked to a testing company in which he has ownership interest, AfricanDna.com.

Our goal in African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle to use the Mellon workshop funds to (1) purchase videos that the Circle members would meet regularly to watch and discuss throughout the year. We will hold six sessions of the workshop: in September, October, November, January, February, and March. And (2) organize a mini-symposium in April during which we will bring to campus for public lectures and within-Circle panel discussion two major figures who have perhaps contributed the most to our understanding of the new intersection of genetics and the African diaspora: the renowned biological anthropologist, Fatimah Jackson, and Rick Kittles, leading geneticist. The Circle members would have encountered the works of these scholars during our regular meetings, and would at the end have a unique opportunity to interact with and the visitors. Our plan is entirely visible. We have a working relationship with Fatimah Jackson; she was part of our landmark conference of 2006 on “African Diaspora and the Disciplines,” and she is represented in the (revised) conference proceedings which we are sending out to Indiana University Press during the second week of February this year. Through her, we can get Rick Kittles with whom she has collaborated. We are also hoping that there would be some synergy between our focus on African diaspora and genetics and the ongoing multi-year programming interest of the Center for Humanities in cultures of the arts and sciences.

The African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle is a gathering of faculty, students, and staff from different departments and units on campus but with common interdisciplinary interests in Africa and the African diaspora. The Circle’s research, curricular and outreach activities are planned and managed by the African Diaspora Cluster faculty composed of Tejumola Olaniyan (English & African Languages and Literature) and James H. Sweet (History). Since its establishment in 2003, the Circle has enriched the intellectual and academic life of the UW community through its various initiatives: regular monthly speaker’s series, which has brought recognized scholars from around the country to share new, cutting-edge research on the African Diaspora; the support of graduate students, by giving then forum to publicly share their work and receive feedback; the co-sponsorship of films, plays, public performances, exhibitions, and lectures organized by other entities on campus. At the curricular level, Circle faculty have consistently offered courses, both graduate and undergraduate, on topics ranging from “African Diaspora Peoples and History,” to “Women of the African Diaspora,” “Contemporary African and Caribbean Drama,” “The History of the African Diaspora through Film,” “African Diaspora: Theory and Practice,” and “African and African American Linkages. For more information, please see http://africa.wisc.edu/diaspora/

See Also: http://africa.wisc.edu/diaspora/2009-2010/mellon.html