“THE DIVERSITY OF DIASPORIC SUBJECTIVITIES: DIFFERENT AND SEPARATE ONTOLOGIES?” A RESPONSE TO KAMARI CLARKE's “NEW SPHERES OF TRANSNATIONAL FORMATIONS: MOBILIZATIONS OF HUMANITARIAN DIASPORAS”

I mostly focus on Clarke's point that the “old African diaspora” and the “new African diaspora” are grounded on different ontologies. I show that even though I have great sympathy for her larger argument, the separation between old and new diasporas runs the risk of appearing somewhat simplistic and even perhaps unrealistic. I conclude with the assertion that if it is true that contemporary African states have engaged in the production and circulation of “new narratives of diaspora,” it is not less true that the same states also manipulate—particularly in sites of memory in West African contexts—older narratives centered on the trans‐Atlantic slave trade.