(Im)migrations, Relations, and Identities of African Peoples: Toward an Endarkened Transnational Feminist Praxis in Education

This article focuses on the sense of what an "African" (American) identity could mean when viewed through the processes of migrations and fluid identities of contemporary African immigrant children as they interact with their African (Americans) peers in schools. The purpose of this article is to use data from a study of West African immigrant girls and their process of ethnic identity construction to support the authors' position for new discourses and methodologies that challenge the dominant discourses surrounding the Black educational experience in schools. This purpose can be articulated in two central questions that guide this article. First, how does one develop a new understanding of the variations of the term African and American by placing it in a global context (and the "American" in parentheses to designate those who were born of African people brought to the U.S. during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade)? Secondly, how does one acknowledge the role of temporality in current definitions of who is African (American)? The goal of this article is to examine the issue of appropriate naming of African ascendant people in the U.S. and to examine how asking new questions of who they are might lead to a more global framework for studying identity construction and negotiation for African ascendant people in the U.S. (Contains 3 notes.)