The Rhizome of Blackness

A Critical Ethnography of Hip-Hop Culture, Language, Identity and the Politics of Becoming

• Author(s): Awad Ibrahim,
• Publisher: Peter Lang
• Pages: 239
• ISBN_10: 1433126036
  ISBN_13: 9781433126031
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General , Education / General , Education / Aims & Objectives , Education / Philosophy, Theory & Social Aspects , Music / Genres & Styles / Rap & Hip Hop , Social Science / General , Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies , Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social , Social Science / Sociology / General , Social Science / Discrimination , Social Science / Black Studies (Global) , Social Science / Race & Ethnic Relations ,

Description:... The Rhizome of Blackness is a critical ethnographic documentation of the process of how continental African youth are becoming Black in North America. They enter a «social imaginary» where they find themselves already falling under the umbrella of Blackness. For young Africans, Hip-Hop culture, language, and identity emerge as significant sites of identification; desire; and cultural, linguistic, and identity investment. No longer is «plain Canadian English» a site of investment, but instead, Black English as a second language (BESL) and «Hip-Hop all da way baby!» (as one student put it). The result of this dialectic space between language learning and identity investment is a complex, multilayered, and «rhizomatic third space, » where Canada meets and rubs shoulders with Africa in downtown Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal in such a way that it produces its own «ticklish subject» and pedagogy of imaginary and integrative anti-racism.