Global Black discourse is often framed through grand narratives and theoretical abstractions of ontological essentialism grounded in shared experiences of racialization within global hierarchies. While politically and intellectually generative, such frameworks can eclipse endogenous processes shaping everyday life among African and Afrodiasporic communities. Abstract theorizing does not always account for the complexity of intra-African relations—especially in the quotidian encounters of ordinary people. These lived dynamics sometimes complicate overarching narratives of solidarity. This panel examines the limits of grand narratives and centers bottom-up processes grounded in sonic practices, lived experience, and collective engagement. The first paper examines how different colonial processes produce distinct subjects and identity formations in postcolonial polities. Drawing on two case studies, it highlights these tensions, strategic positions, and possibilities for imagining a pluriversal Africa. The second paper explores how Afro-Colombians reclaim Black identity and consolidate collective rights through collaborations with African musicians. Combining grassroots initiatives with state diplomacy, it opens possibilities for a more dynamic Africa–Afrodiasporic narrative. The third paper reflects on how African ethnographers sometimes de-emphasize the complex structural interactions in the field, obscuring lived dynamics. These slippages become pronounced when guiding parameters are insufficiently defined. The fourth paper examines large box-resonated lamellophones as material embodiments of circuitous flows of people, culture, ideas, and technology. Focusing on the local adaptation of a transnational instrument, the paper analyzes strategies of localization and indigenization in the Black Atlantic. Together, these papers foreground everyday sonic practices shaping intra-African and Afrodiasporic relations, generating Global Black thought from below.
Please submit abstracts to Adebola Ola (ola@bu.edu) by September 12.
