supported me in Philadelphia was not apparent in Minnesota. Since my culture was no longer at my doorstep, I had to seek it out and develop a social network through which I could express it with other people.
During this period, to my absolute shock and surprise, Minnesota’s African immigrant community began to grow by leaps and bounds. By the late 1990s, the state had more Somalis than any other place in the country, as well as Ethiopians and other Africans from many countries—many of whom were refugees escaping the wars and civil unrest affecting their homelands. I certainly did not expect to find many African immigrants in one of the most frigid parts of the country, where winter often lasts from October to May. All of sudden, it seemed to me, African groceries started opening up. I could now easily buy a powdered pounded yam mix, plantains and other foods that had become a regular part of my diet after living in Nigeria. Slowly but surely, African restaurants, tailor shops, and social service agencies began to appear. At the same time, I kept running into African American professionals who had recently relocated to Minnesota, which has one of the highest concentrations of Fortune 500 companies in the United States and, at the time, one of the lowest unemployment rates. I later learned from the 2000 Census and other statistical studies that I cite in this book that in the 1990s, Minnesota also had a large influx of African Americans from other cities—poor and middle-class—who arrived here for opportunities in the region’s vibrant economy. In fact, as I later discovered, the recent census also showed that Minnesota has the most diverse Black population in the United States in terms of ethnic and national origin. My personal sense that America’s Black diaspora was converging in the Twin Cities was validated by the statistics, and I was living through these demographic changes. The process of writing this book helped me understand why these changes were occurring and what they meant for contemporary global cultural dynamics.
Like most ethnography, this piece of scholarship also contains shards of the ethnographer’s personal life. Throughout this book the reader will see that I recognize these influences and address them in my scholarly analysis. In other words, in current anthropological parlance, I attempt to be “reflexive”—to put myself as ethnographer in the story and attempt to self-consciously control for ways in which my personal biases might influence the research setting and my interpretation of it. This preface serves in part as an additional personal disclosure. However, it is also a commentary on the particular challenges that the field of anthropology sometimes presents for people of color, women, and others who do “native anthropology,” that is, ethnography in their own country or community of origin applying reflexive approaches. Until writing this book, I felt caught between two competing but often implicit claims of reflexive ethnography. On the one hand, the field maintains that such an approach is legitimate and even necessary for contemporary ethnography. On the other hand, scholars who use reflexive approaches, especially when doing native anthropology, can be seen as less objective. This book presents key fieldwork encounters and other personal perspectives that may have affected collection and interpretation of the ethnographic data. But this book is an ethnography, not a memoir or diary. I keep community voices dominant and my voice is evident to the extent it may have influenced the research context. I present diverse perspectives on the CWC’s work and include verbatim statements of people during CWC meetings and programs to give the reader an authentic sense of the dynamic culture-building processes taking place there. At the same time I try to protect the identities of the persons with whom I worked. This is particularly important because the leadership and participants were wary of being subjected to studies that had no clear benefit to their community. Thus, pseudonyms are used throughout and I avoid providing personal detail about participants’ lives that would easily identify them and their opinions here in the local community.
Some might find the CWC’s mission and programs controversial. For example, some Africanists might find its notions of Africa romanticized. Anthropologists might take issue with its notions of race and culture. Those with little experience in grassroots Black community efforts might deem their ideas Afrocentric. But cultural anthropologists specialize in documenting human cultural creativity. Thus, the CWC’s work is by definition worthy of study, even if its views may be disagreeable to some scholars. As an individual, I do not necessarily agree with all CWC doctrines and to write an unbiased case study does not require that I do so. However, as a cultural anthropologist I recognize one of the field’s basic tenets: people’s beliefs are culturally true for them, and we are charged to study them regardless of our own beliefs—personal or scholarly.
I have had numerous guides and supporters on this stage of my diasporan journey. Although the interpretation of these experiences is mine, survival through this sojourn would not have been possible without them. First, I must recognize the support and encouragement of Paul Stoller and Peter Agree, my two editors at the University of Pennsylvania Press. I appreciate their ability to see in this case study a story worthy of being told.
I must also acknowledge the excellent training and support that I have received from many people for many years from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Sandra Barnes, in particular, has been an indefatigable advocate and mentor. Her openness to my exploration of unconventional topics in Africanist anthropology has been critical to my development. Her steadfast support through the sometimes unpredictable twists and turns of my diasporan journey has been above and beyond the call of duty.
Igor Kopytoff’s steady support and exemplary training in the history of anthropology as well as classical approaches in Africanist anthropology have also made important contributions to my development. His consistent reminder to study the classics and friendly debates about postmodern theory have influenced the eclectic blending of old and new theory in this study’s interpretation of transnational cultural processes in the Twin Cities African diaspora. I am also grateful for Peggy Sanday’s encouragement to publish the study and her public-interest anthropology perspective.
Classes by Arjun Appadurai, now at the New School for Social Research, and Kris Hardin provided invaluable explorations of issues in ethnohistory, ethnoaesthetics, and the anthropology of complexity which are evident throughout this study. Finally, Gwendolyn Mikell of Georgetown University and Elliot Skinner of Columbia University have provided appreciated encouragement and advice since my undergraduate days.
The Bush Foundation’s Leadership Fellowship Program (1997–1998) provided funding for this study. Its support enabled me to take a much-needed leave of absence from practicing anthropology to conduct the primary research for this study. I am especially thankful to John Archabal, Martha Lee, and Charlene Edwards of the foundation for their feedback and support. While on this leave of absence I was a fellow at the Roy Wilkins Center at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute. The center’s current and former staff—Professor Samuel L. Myers, Jr., director; Judy Leahy; Mary Lou Garza; and Julia Blount—provided not only an academic home base in Minnesota but constant encouragement. I would especially like to thank Julia, who helped me solve the mysteries of word processing.
I must also recognize two agencies where I had professional experiences that helped to sensitize me to the potential of the nonprofit and philanthropic sector to inform contemporary issues in anthropology: the Philadelphia Foundation and the OMG Center. My sincere thanks to Carrolle Devonish, formerly president of the foundation, and Tom Burns and Gerri Spilka of the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, who provided me with practical forums to cultivate some of the approaches to nonprofit sector ethnography used in this study.
I cannot express enough appreciation to the staff, participants, and volunteers of the Cultural Wellness Center, where I based the ethnographic research for this study. Their bold and unconventional approach to issues of health and wellness and their capacity to build concrete consensus around a wide range of potentially volatile community issues are inspiring. I am thankful for their collaboration and hopeful that the concepts presented in this study are in some way useful to their work.
Finally, I must recognize my extended network of family and friends who have been a bedrock of support through what has been one of the most challenging undertakings of my life. A special thanks to my husband, Emmett D. Carson, and my thirteen-year-old
