Dr. Masonya Bennett, Assistant Professor of Black Studies, "The Great Global North
Escape & What It Means for the Global South: Black on Black Tourism, Entrepreneurship,
and Other Transnational Exchanges in the Neoliberal African Diaspora."
In 2019, U.S-based Black American travelers spent 129.6 billion on domestic and international leisure travel, yet this demographic remains largely understudied (MMGY 2021). Ghana鈥檚 Year of Return campaign in 2019 presented a clear impetus directing Black Americans鈥 return to Africa with an emphasis on 鈥渞oots tourism鈥 and opportunities for economic investment as an incentive for relocation. At the same time, due to proximity, more affordable travel costs, and the realization of prominent African descendent populations outside of the US and Africa, countries such as Brazil and Colombia have become major destinations for Black American tourists and expats. My on-going research aims to (re)shift our understandings of resistance, movements, and migrations from those associated with the Transatlantic Slave Trade to those stirred by Contemporary Globalization. Further, by reconceptualizing the idea of migration as an upward trajectory from 鈥淪outh鈥 to 鈥淣orth鈥 to one of 鈥淣orth鈥 to 鈥淪outh,鈥 my work endeavors toward an interdisciplinary and comparative analysis of the ways in which sociocultural and economic exchanges premised on interactions between Black American tourists/expats and Afro-descendants in the Global South foster transnational forms of economic sustainability, resistance, and collective identity. The study also begs the question of how Black Americans potentially reify Global North socioeconomic hierarchies, intra-racially, within the Global South.
Date: November 13, 2024
Time: 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Location: ALC4103 (Academic Learning Center)
To join us online, please follow this link:
https://ksuhub.com/cas-nov-13
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