In Autochthonomies,
Myriam J. A. Chancy engages readers in an interpretive journey. She
lays out a radical new process that invites readers to see creations
by artists of African descent as legible within the context of
African diasporic historical and cultural debates. By invoking a
transnational African/diasporic lens and negotiating it through a
lakou or "yard space," we can see such identities
transfigured, recognized, and exchanged. Chancy demonstrates how the
process can examine the salient features of texts and art that
underscore African/diasporic sensibilities and render them legible.
What emerges is a potential for richer readings of African diasporic
works that also ruptures the Manichean binary dynamics that have
dominated previous interpretations of the material. The result: an
enriching interpretive mode focused on the transnational connections
between subjects of African descent as the central pole for reader
investigation.
A
bold challenge to established scholarship, Autochthonomies
ranges from Africa to Europe and the Americas to provide powerful new
tools for charting the transnational interactions between African
cultural producers and sites.