What actually makes something "African"? Is it language…
0 reactions
What actually makes something "African"?
Is it language? Family traditions? Food? Religion? Music? Clothing? Ancestry? Geography? Shared history? Or simply identifying with the continent?
I've been thinking about this because "African culture" can sometimes sound like one single thing, when Africa is made up of thousands of communities with their own languages, traditions, histories and ways of life. What is considered traditionally African in Kenya might be completely unfamiliar to someone from Senegal, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe or Morocco. Yet there are also cultural similarities that connect communities across very different parts of the continent.
Interestingly, African cultures have never existed in complete isolation. Communities traded with one another, migrated, intermarried and interacted with people from outside Africa. Languages changed, foods were adopted, religions spread, and traditions evolved. The paper also describes African culture as something expressed through music, dance, art, sculpture, beadwork, oral traditions, religion, cuisine and language.
That makes me wonder whether cultural identity is really about keeping everything "pure" and unchanged. Can a culture absorb something from another culture and still remain distinctly its own? If an African family speaks English or French at home, eats foods that came through centuries of outside contact, practices a global religion, listens to both African and foreign music, but still maintains its own customs and sense of belonging, is that any less African?
I think African identity isn't defined by one particular language, religion, food or tradition. Maybe it's something more complicated like a combination of history, community, memory, values, experiences and the way people choose to identify themselves.
***If you had to explain African cultural identity to someone who knew absolutely nothing about Africa, what would you say makes something "African"? And can something be African even if it originally came from somewhere else?***
#local
Is it language? Family traditions? Food? Religion? Music? Clothing? Ancestry? Geography? Shared history? Or simply identifying with the continent?
I've been thinking about this because "African culture" can sometimes sound like one single thing, when Africa is made up of thousands of communities with their own languages, traditions, histories and ways of life. What is considered traditionally African in Kenya might be completely unfamiliar to someone from Senegal, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe or Morocco. Yet there are also cultural similarities that connect communities across very different parts of the continent.
Interestingly, African cultures have never existed in complete isolation. Communities traded with one another, migrated, intermarried and interacted with people from outside Africa. Languages changed, foods were adopted, religions spread, and traditions evolved. The paper also describes African culture as something expressed through music, dance, art, sculpture, beadwork, oral traditions, religion, cuisine and language.
That makes me wonder whether cultural identity is really about keeping everything "pure" and unchanged. Can a culture absorb something from another culture and still remain distinctly its own? If an African family speaks English or French at home, eats foods that came through centuries of outside contact, practices a global religion, listens to both African and foreign music, but still maintains its own customs and sense of belonging, is that any less African?
I think African identity isn't defined by one particular language, religion, food or tradition. Maybe it's something more complicated like a combination of history, community, memory, values, experiences and the way people choose to identify themselves.
***If you had to explain African cultural identity to someone who knew absolutely nothing about Africa, what would you say makes something "African"? And can something be African even if it originally came from somewhere else?***
#local
| 4,000 mlx | |
| 7 | |
| 0 |