UC DAVIS
Department of African American and African
Studies
Brown Bag Lecture
Wednesday January 31, 2018 12noon -1PM
Hart Hall 2215
How to study or even talk about the African diaspora in
societies where there are no population statistics based on
race, nor established vocabularies for discussions on racial
identities? In Northern Europe, African diaspora communities
represent mainly the new African diaspora. In research
literature, they have been approached as immigrants rather
than as citizens or communities based on shared
experiences of racism. Dr. Rastas provides a short overview
of research on Africans and other people of the African
diasporas in Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark, Iceland,
Norway, and Sweden). Her talk argues that the lack of
research on their communities and cultures can partly be
explained by the limitations of the theoretical premises of
both sociological and anthropological migration studies and
African/Black diaspora studies in their ability to acknowledge
the diversity of and the rapid transformations within
diasporas.
IN SEARCH OF THE
AFRICAN
DIASPORA(S)
IN NORTHERN
EUROPE
Anna Rastas, PhD
University of
Tampere, Finland
────
Anna Rastas, Dr.Soc.Sc.
(sociology / social
anthropology) is a Finnish
scholar and anti-racism
activist who works as an
Academy of Finland
Research Fellow at the
University of Tampere. She
has conducted extensive
research on African
diaspora communities and
racialized relations in
Northern Europe. Her
publications have focused
especially on children and
young people, and on
ethnographic and
collaborative action
research methodologies.
Her on-going project (2015-
2020) examines diaspora
formations and
representations of African
diasporas in museums and
exhibitions in different
countries.
Homepage: http://www.uta.fi/y
ky/en/contact/personnel/anna
rastas/index.html