CULTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
You are to write a 1500 to 2500-word autobiographical essay examining your relationship with the Africana cultural heritage.
Discuss, in detail, the historical and cultural context in which you grew up, your family structure(s), and how it meshed with the African in ‘African-American’ culture. Provide as much detail as is necessary and that space will allow. Discuss your cultural background as it impacts your thought processes and worldview.
Conceptual Development
In your cultural autobiography, you should go beyond merely stating, for example, that you are a Black, Jamaican descended, English-speaking male etc. or a second-generation Jamaican American, multilingual female who was raised in a working-class family etc. How does Africana Studies address the story of you and your family? How can the constituent disciplines in Africana Studies (History, Sociology, Psychology, Political science, etc.) shed light on the complexity of your story? Frantz Fanon wrote that true education must, “make the history of the nation part of the personal experience of each of its citizens.” Choose two disciplines that are relevant and analyze your life using at least one distinct model from each discipline. For example, how has institutional decimation affected your community? Be clear, name the model, the discipline and discuss how it relates to your life.
Consider the major event that occurred during your birth year or upbringing. How does that event speak to the historical context that shaped your life? How should you grapple with telling your own story in a raging sea of history? This should take some careful thinking.
Use of Evidence
Utilize the previous research and content relevant from the course to tell your story.
Review the BLHAC concepts and Africana Studies theories as evidence to support the argument presented in your Cultural Autobiography.
Incorporate the voices of the most significant “Thought Leaders” that contribute to the telling of your Cultural Autobiography.
Reflect on the different “Ways of Knowing” to determine the types of methods and evidence utilized in the discipline of Africana Studies that will support your Cultural Autobiography:
- Archival Research
- Document Analysis
- Case Studies
- Field Notes
- Focus Groups
- Interviews and Surveys
- Literature Review
- Mapping
- Participant Observation • Primary Sources
- Rituachols and Tradition
- Secondary Sources
