S3, E4 All Skinfolk Ain't Kinfolk

Zora's Daughters

"I'm not Black, I'm OJ!" Today, Brendane and Alyssa are talking kinship, belonging, diaspora wars, and what we need to do to get free.

What's the Word? Kinship. Kinship studies are foundational to the discipline of anthropology, but in this section we talk about how people are taking up the concept to tell their own stories today.

What We're Reading. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Trade by Saidiya Hartman. In this segment, we read the first two chapters to trace Hartman's attention to kinship and belonging in the afterlife of slavery. What does it feel like to be a stranger everywhere?

What in the World?! We talk about the "intratribal conflict" of the African diaspora wars, the choice of identity and how it's a shortcut for people to understand how to oppress you, dating tips from our moms, boycotting The Woman King, how ADOS and FBA strategies disenfranchise Black Americans and promote anti-blackness, and Brendane's personal experience visiting Ghana.

By the way, we're on break! We'll be back with episode 5 on November 9th - just in time for the AAA Annual Meeting!

Discussed In This Episode

Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Trade (Saidiya Hartman, 2008)
Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship (Kath Weston, 1991)

Other Episodes

S1, E7 Holy Is the Black Woman
S1, E15 B**** Better Have My Money!
S2, E9 Separate but Equal Month

Syllabus for ZD 301 is available here!

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Transcript will be available on our website here.