6 Conceptual Categories
Dr. Greg Carr
Social Structures:
What is/are the social structures in place for the people
discussed? In other words, what social structure do the people being discussed live under at the time we are studying?
Examples from this category include:
Capitalism, Plantation, Manufacturing or Extraction-Based Enslavement, Debt Peonage, Direct or Indirect-Rule Colonialism, Rural or Urban Socio-Economic Environments, Information, Knowledge or Service-Based Economies, etc.
Governance:
How did the Africans being studied organize themselves during
this period and under the particular social structure they find themselves in
and/or subject to?
Examples from this category include: family-based social
groupings, village-based systems, state-based systems, empires, extended
family networks (involving “experiential kin”), “maroon” socio-political-
cultural networks (e.g. “Black Public Spheres” or “Convened Black Spaces”),etc.
Ways of Knowing:
What ways/views/senses (e.g. ideas about the nature, purpose, function and process of existence and being) did Africans develop to explain the worlds they lived in during the period being studied, and how did they use those ways to address fundamental issues of living during this period?
Examples from this category include: Classical African spiritual/knowledge systems (e.g. Nile Valley); Medieval African spiritual/knowledge systems (e.g. Yoruba, Akan, Zulu, Mande, Dinka, Bambara, Ki-Kongo, etc.), Contemporary (1500-present) Abrahamic African spiritual traditions (e.g. Vodun, Santeria, Lukumi, Macumba, Candomble, Obeah, Shango/Shouter/Spiritual Baptist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Afro-Baptist) and/or knowledge traditions (e.g. voodoo, hoodoo, conjure, rootwork, laying- on-hands, et. al.), etc.
Science and Technology:
What types of devices were developed to shape
nature and human relationships with animals and with each other during this
period and how did they affect Africans and others? Examples from this
category include: Architectural Inventions, Animal Husbandry,
Agricultural/Crop Development Technology (e.g. rice, cotton, tobacco, etc.);
Manufacturing Technology, etc.
Movement and Memory:
How did/do Africans remember this experience?
Examples from this category include: “King Buzzard” stories explaining initial
capture for enslavement; “Folk” narratives explaining intra and inter-race
relations; Rituals of memory-preserving/convening Maroon spaces (e.g.
family reunions, Emancipation Day, Juneteenth, Church and University
“Homecoming” rituals,), etc.; and
Cultural Meaning-Making:
What specific art, dance and/or inscriptions (literature/orature), otherwise characterized as “texts and practices” did Africans create during this period? Examples from this category involve the broad field of sacred/secular cultural practices among African people and include: Various musical traditions (e.g. Soca, Calypso, Blues, Ska, Reggae, Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, Pan, Rumba, Bomba, Afro-Beat, et. al.), material art traditions (e.g. sculpture, painting, architectural design, etc.), dance traditions (e.g. Tango, B-Boying and Girling, Line Dancing, Ring Shout, et. al.), etc.