Organizers: ASWAD Executive Board
Name of Organizing Chair: Cheryl Sterling
The title of this call, “It’s time to sit together and talk a little culture,” is a reworking of the title of Sylvia Wynter’s amazing collection of essays, calling for a reconceptualization of the Caribbean. This call, however, extends to all our diasporas. The many African Diasporas are marked by both their incredible similarity and diversity in their historical formations, languages spoken, cultural forms, beliefs systems, political placements in the Global South, and ideations for their future place and placement. While African Diaspora studies, in all its variants, has always faced challenges, we are at a time of increased rupture, where departments are under forcible dissolution, studies in our fields are labeled “woke” and wrong, and individuals and institutions face punitive repercussions for their continued support of knowledge and multivocality in the academy.
Wynter’s work always sought to unify and integrate our knowledges. This panel aims to bring into dialogue the many African diasporas — whether from the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or the Indian Ocean — to analyze and reflect on our shared histories and cultures, contemporary realities, and future ideals. Questions that may guide our collaboration include: How do the past struggles in our areas of research aid in our present moment? In what ways do we need to reconceptualize, reformulate, and construct new unified agendas? What are the future visions for African Diaspora Studies?
Suggested Topic areas include, but are not limited to the following:
Freedom Struggles
Reparations
Neocolonialism and Decolonization
African Diaspora Identities
Environmental Ethics
Africana (Black) Feminisms
Gender and Sexuality
Social, Cultural, and/or Religious Formations
Repatriation and/or Pan-Africanism
Movements, Migration, and Belonging
The Future of African Diaspora Studies
To Participate:
All session participants must be ASWAD members in good standing. Please send a title, abstract (200 words), with your topic listed, and your complete contact information (including institutional affiliation) to Cheryl Sterling at casterling@gmail.com by end of day Friday, March 13, 2026.
