Critical departures in the Practice of Pan-Africanism

This chapter offers an analysis of the evolution and use of the term Pan-Africanism. It first offers comparative terms like Pan-Negro, Colored Peoples, Abyssinians and thiopianism as precedent ideational expressions of Pan-Africanism. This is followed by succinct examples of multiple forms of Pan-Africanism: social, political, economic, cultural, and intellectual. It argues that whilst Pan-African social movement has lost vigor, new analytic paradigms emerging from the worldwide study of the African Diaspora has reinforced Pan-African sentiment. These new terms include African Diaspora, Global Africa, and Diasporic Africa. It also offers a brief analysis of the historical role of several Pan-African figures: Edward Blyden, W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Muammar Ghadaffi, and Thabo Mbeki. It notes particularly the period of a short lived "Pan-African Renaissance" of the last decade as critical to the present state of Pan-African organizing and activities.