Terminology...

Our second meeting regarding the Best of Both World’s exchange to Amsterdam, centred on the term African Diaspora and what it meant to us in our work. This stimulated a lot of debate as the ‘terminology’ conversation often does…

Admittedly, I enter this space slightly exasperated at the amount of times this conversation seems to be had at events I attend and yet no resolution is found. It feels like a loop or a glitch in our system as such. A divisive conversation cycle that Black people often get stuck in, which prevents us from getting to the actual work.

What we as people of colour should call ourselves is always hotly debated. Should we say Black, African, Caribbean, Afro-Caribbean, Black-British, mixed, dual heritage, interracial… need I continue! Whilst I recognise that naming oneself is a powerful self-defining tool I do feel that the conversation often gets stuck there. For me, the term Black is nice and simple, I like the powerful history and political meaning of the word but others do not feel comfortable with it or don’t see it as a reflection of themselves, they prefer other terms. This is fair enough, we all have to respect each other’s forms of self-identification, however I think that once the conversation has been had or we recognise / agree that for that purpose, at that time, we are going to strategically essentialise under said term. This does not negate that we are all complex, multi-faceted individuals who occupy different elements of identities at different times but once we have reached some form of agreement…. let’s move on. The conversation can be revisited if appropriate but conversation for conversation sake over terminology is one of my bug bears. It will be interesting to see what comes out in the data regarding the term African diaspora…