The African Diaspora, Civil Society and African Integration
This paper, a work-in-progress, makes a contribution to the discussions on the appropriate modalities for incorporating the African diaspora in the African integration project. It argues that the most appropriate entry points for incorporating the African diaspora into the integration project might not, necessarily, be in the formal political structures, although this is important. To the contrary, the most effective and sustainable might be within civil society--that is the links between the peoples and organizations of Africa and the diaspora. Using the case of the African academy-as an institution of civil society--the paper outlines a conceptual framework for incorporating the diaspora into the African integration project.
The Second Boat of Africa’s New Diaspora: Looking at the Other Side of the Global Divide with an Emphasis on Sudan
The processes of globalization have accelerated the exodus of the highly skilled from the collapsing modernization project. This article suggests that the flight of the educated elite is linked to the relative strength of the nation-state and both the length and intensity of internal conflicts. It is also suggested that the "skills exodus" may represent a major disruption in the political and social development of Africa, leading to further marginalization and affecting Africa's capacity to revive development or envision an alternative development path. The emphasis is on Sudan's unprecedented massive skills exodus during the past three decades, suggesting that this one case is extremely relevant to the rest of the continent, given the country's favorable situation at the time of its independence in 1956.
How the West was One: On the uses and Limitations of Diaspora
fully well that the concept of an African diaspora is hardly new. Even if we limit our discussion to scholarly investigations of the African diaspora, we will discover a rich discourse dating back at least to the 1950s and 1960s, if not before. It served as both a political term with which to emphasize unifying experiences of African peoples dispersed by the slave trade, and an analytical term that enabled scholars to talk about