Graduation Year
2022
Date of Submission
12-2022
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Africana Studies
Reader 1
Maryan Soliman
Reader 2
Martín Vega
Terms of Use & License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Rights Information
© 2022 Toluwani Roberts
Abstract
“Cultural Resistance in the African Diaspora: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis of Land-Based Community Care” explores the use of land for the self-liberation and sustenance of African and African descendant peoples. It argues that collective cultivation of land is key to the development of African-derived cultures and forms the foundation of resistance against Western-capitalist cultural domination. Maroon societies, also known as runaway communities, of the 16th to 19th centuries are one of the earliest examples of land-based resistance in slave colonies that have contributed to the development of what we now call the African Diaspora. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, an anthology edited by Richard Price, and other texts inform the “Historical Analysis” of these communities. Additional literature reviews of Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica M. White and African American Folk Healing by Stephanie Y. Mitchem provide more recent Historical U.S.-based models of Black land-based living and healing. A personal interview with a Black healer-artist and reviews of Black farms, gardens, and herbalist collectives inform this paper’s “Contemporary Analysis” of the topic. The goal of this text is to expand general knowledge of and inspire action towards land-based community care in people of the African Diaspora.
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Toluwani, "Cultural Resistance in the African Diaspora: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis of Land-Based Community Care" (2022). CMC Senior Theses. 3092.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3092
