Black Atlantic

by

Dhanesh Mankulam

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0139

Introduction

The term “Black Atlantic” comes from the English sociologist and cultural studies scholar Paul Gilroy, who talked about a distinct Black Atlantic culture that incorporated elements from African, American, British, and Caribbean cultures and positioned itself as a counterculture to Western modernity. He used this term in his 1993 book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (cited under General Readings: The Context). Black Atlantic in this sense can be seen both as a critical concept as well as a method to approach this counterculture. Gilroy describes his objective in his book as marking the experiences of Black people as part of the idea of modernity. The idea is that if one traces back to the time of slave trade and transportation of people across the Atlantic Ocean, the routes alone will emerge like a map that connects the African diaspora people from the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa across the Atlantic. Gilroy postulates that this itself brings up a sense of shared history, shared culture, and shared identity that can constitute a counterculture and a critical historical positionality. The proposition is that such a perspective and the presence of this Black Atlantic positionality will potentially alter the existing ideas, perspectives, narratives, and axiological categories that are predominantly Eurocentric. The history of African diaspora can be meaningfully studied only by taking into account this concept of a Black Atlantic counterculture that maps the historical transoceanic experience of the Black community, beginning with the first instances of slave trade. One important concept that the concept of Black Atlantic deals with is the idea of “double consciousness.” The famous African American sociologist, socialist, and historian W. E. B. Du Bois influentially discussed this notion in the early twentieth century. He postulated that a double consciousness emerged in the African diaspora identity from the tension between the individual’s self-image and the image projected in the White-centric discourses as its “other.” The Black Atlantic counterculture positions itself against such existing positionalities in the larger contexts of sociopolitical, historical, national, and identity discourses.

General Readings: The Context

In the exploration of the Black Atlantic, various scholarly works contribute to understanding its cultural space. Gilroy 1993 defines and contextualizes the term. Du Bois 2012 positions the African diasporic experience historically. Robinson 2000 critiques the Black tradition from a Marxist perspective. Fanon 1963 explores the impact of forced deprivation on colonial subjects. Pratt 1992 examines travel’s role in imperialism and racism. Miles 2001 traces racism’s development in European society. Hine, et al. 2009 challenges the traditional view of Europe, providing insights into the Black Atlantic’s formation. Together, these works offer a comprehensive understanding of the Black Atlantic’s complex dimensions.

• Chrisman, Laura. “Rethinking Black Atlanticism.” The Black Scholar 30.3–4 (2000): 12–17.

  DOI: 10.1080/00064246.2000.11431102

  This book positions Gilroy’s work as thoroughly anti-nationalist and tries to discuss the hybridized culture of Black Atlantic as a countercultural approach to modernity and modern nationalist imaginations. The essay also problematizes the emergent transatlanticism.

• Du Bois, W. E. B., ed. Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. New York: Routledge, 2012.

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315147413

  Published in 1935, this work positions the African diasporic experience within historical and contemporary contexts, examining the shift from a White-European- to a Black-African-centered perspective in culture, epistemology, and history. The fourth chapter explores the crucial concept of a “general strike.” In her 2014 essay “General Strike,” contemporary intellectual Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak engages with this idea, underscoring its significance in the broader discourse.

• Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963.

  In this influential work, philosopher and political activist Frantz Fanon explores the psychological effects of colonialism and oppression on the colonized. Fanon argues that colonialism creates a state of existential crisis in the colonized, who are denied both cultural and political agency. Fanon develops the concept of racialization in the chapter titled “On National Culture.” The book also discusses the idea of violence and the psychological dimensions of colonial “othering.”

• Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

  Gilroy explores the ways in which Black people have shaped and been shaped by the cultural and political systems of the Atlantic world. The book defines and contextually discusses the term “Black Atlantic.” The book elaborates on how this acts as a counterculture of the Western model of modernity. The book also discusses the politics of authenticity by mentioning Black music as an example. The book touches upon notions such as double consciousness, Black Atlantic as a cultural space, the role of music, the transatlantic slave trade, and the Black diaspora.

• Hine, Darlene Clark, Trica Danielle Keaton, and Stephen Small, eds. Black Europe and the African Diaspora. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

  This book challenges the perception of Europe as a homogenous white space by exploring the lives of people of African descent within it. It delves into how European history encompasses the African diaspora, examining how individuals of African descent construct their identities in European contexts. Offering a critical perspective, the book provides valuable insights into the formation and structure of the Black Atlantic subculture.

• hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.

  This book explores the ways in which representations of race and blackness have been influential in the constitution of systems of racial oppressions. The book postulates that the cultural politics of race, especially in terms of representation and validation, have been central to the black experiences in the African diasporas.

• Miles, Robert. Racism in Europe: 1870–2000. European Culture & Society Series. New York: Routledge, 2001.

  This study, spanning 1870 to 2000, delves into the evolution of racism in European society, emphasizing its historical context. Exploring theoretical postulations on race, ethnicity, and imperial missions, the book sheds light on the formation of the subculture associated with the term “Black Atlantic.” Critiquing “racialization,” it presents a nonessential perspective on race and challenges conventional notions of racial categorization within the human species.

• Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992.

  This book explores the relationship between travel writing and imperialism. Pratt argues that travel writing played a significant role in the process of transculturation, which is the mutual transformation of cultures that occurs when different groups come into contact with each other. The book analyzes various travel narratives to show how the genre was used to produce and reproduce certain stereotypes about non-European cultures, such as the “noble savage” and the “exotic other.”

• Robinson, Cedric J. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

  This book analyzes how the Marxist tradition is insufficient as a framework to understand the experiences and struggles of Black people. The book states that the Black tradition is a distinct intellectual and political movement in its own right, which is crucial to the making of the modern mainstream movements. The book also brings in the context of capitalism to see how capital itself is contributing to racial practices.

• Young, Cynthia A. Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.

  DOI: 10.1215/9780822388616

  Examining the cultural and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s, this book illuminates their role in shaping the emergence of a Black Atlantic identity. It delves into the formation of subcultures through the rise of the “Third World Left” in the United States during this period. The book further explores the intersection of gender, sociological theories, and various ethnicities, including African American, within the broader discourse of race.