Open AccessDiaspora and African Sustainabilities: Stories from Somalis in Maine, USA
Author(s) -
Besteman Catherine
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
proceedings of the african futures conference
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2573-508X
DOI - 10.1002/j.2573-508x.2016.tb00070.x
Subject(s) - somali , diaspora , narrative , politics , ethnography , media studies , presentation (obstetrics) , gender studies , sociology , avatar , movie theater , history , visual arts , anthropology , political science , art , art history , literature , law , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , radiology
The 15 images combine photographs from southern Somalia taken in 1988 with photographs taken in Lewiston, Maine over the past decade. The photographs are of the same people, doing the same kinds of things – cooking, going to work, studying, laughing, playing, dancing, talking – except the images are taken 20 years apart. The Somali community‐in‐exile is self‐consciously diasporic, retaining strong connections to Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere on the African continent through travel, cyberspace, and sharing money, images, DVDs, aesthetics, political engagements and historical memory. Somalis in Maine are invested in Somalia's sustainability and in sustaining not only their family members in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia but also their sense of what it means to be from and of Somalia. With a focus on one aspect of the African diaspora, the images ask us to reconceptualize what Africa is, where it is located, and where its temporal and imagined borders lie. The narrative that accompanies the photographs consists of a series of ethnographic fragments that prod these questions through examples, quotes, observations and reflections. The presentation is intended to be provocative and reflective rather than conclusive.