S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on this episode of KPBS Midday Edition. A new Africana Research Center opens at Sdsu. Director Taharqa a day tells us about it. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. A new research center has opened at Sdsu dedicated to African history , culture and knowledge across the diaspora. The Africana Research and Cultural Renaissance Center is organized around three pillars cultural restoration , cultural rectification , and cultural property. Now joining me to talk about it is the center's director , Taharqa Adel. He's an associate professor of africana studies at San Diego State University. Professor , Welcome to Midday edition. Hi.
S2: Hi. Thank you for having me.
S1: So glad to have you here. Congratulations on getting the center open. First and foremost.
S3: I really appreciate. It.
S1: It. Yeah , yeah. Um , so tell me about this center at Sdsu is born out of your research on African history and culture and the legacy of leaders. And so tell me about that research and why you feel called to it. Yes.
S2: Yes. So , uh , this research , the center itself , it really evolved out of my own , uh , research agenda. Uh , so it grew out of questions. I kept returning to , uh , such as what happened to culture. When people move , what survives , what changes and what gets forgotten. And sometimes a cultural creation becomes familiar around the world while its creators disappear from the story entirely. So I wanted a place where students and scholars and community members could investigate those questions together and and make that knowledge useful beyond the university.
S1: Well , as I mentioned earlier , this center is organized around three pillars cultural restoration , cultural rectification , and cultural property. Can you explain those three concepts and how they intersect? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So cultural restoration essentially means recovering knowledge and connections that have been obscured. Rectification means correcting distorted accounts of African people and their cultures and cultural property , as essentially who has authority over cultural creations and who benefits from them. So the way they connect is that understanding a tradition's history helps us represent it accurately and as better questions about its ownership and its use. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. Interesting. And this center just opened last month. Tell me , what kinds of projects do you have underway?
S2: Yeah , so we have a few projects underway. The two that we , uh , that we guaranteed to to have. Uh , when we started , this center was a GIS cultural Patterns project , which essentially traces cultural patterns , uh , from Africa , particularly West Africa. But it can expand beyond that to the Americas. And anything you can think of. Language , food , uh , music. Um , anything that would be considered a cultural pattern. Uh , to to look at those things and trace them and , and try to discover how those things influenced , uh , what we call the Americas. The second is a , uh , a student journal that , uh , currently we're calling the Weber Review in honor of , uh , Secretary of State Shirley Weber , who was one of the founders of the department here at San Diego State University. Uh , so that's a student journal that students can use to gain research skills as well as , uh , get some early publication in.
S1: I want to circle back to something you said earlier , which is , you know , one of the one of the points and purposes of this is to tell history accurately. Um , and ask the right questions. So what does that look like?
S2: Telling history accurately. So , so much of Western interpretation of African and African diasporic history , of course , has been Western interpretation. Much of it it has not depended upon the agency of the subjects being interpreted. So , uh , the , the thoughts and ideas and feelings and worldview of African people and people of African descent about their own cultural phenomena. And so that is the the heart of the type of research that we provide here at the center is to make sure that that perspective is preserved.
S1: And this research , it takes an interdisciplinary approach , drawing on archival sources and oral histories. Why is it so important to pull from those different mediums to unpack this history?
S2: Well , it's important because , um , really , it's a it's a disciplinary approach with interest in other disciplines. And the reason why I framed that frame it that way is because many other fields and mediums have interpreted the the data from a Western perspective. And so we take we take a look at that data and we pull it in and we say , okay , what has been accurately interpreted and what's what has been misinterpreted and , and used the methodologies within africana studies in order to interpret it correctly or to the best capability that we can.
S1: And you're working with local , national and even international organizations , including a group called African Ancestry. Tell me about the work they do and how it intersects with your your vision.
S2: Well , we had African Ancestry is an amazing organization that for over 20 years have been , uh , assisting , um , in helping people to discover their ancestry. Right now , they primarily do , uh , either paternal or maternal ancestry lineage. So tracing either side back to a specific ethnic group in , uh , in Africa for , you know , people to understand either a number of centuries ago or , um , or how or far back they can. They can manage. Uh , what , uh , a specific ethnic group that their lineage comes from. And it really gives people kind of a closeness and connection with their African heritage that a lot of most people were broken off from due to the nature of the transatlantic slave trade. So they're an amazing organization. And so they , um , Gina Paige , who is the the CEO of the organization , um , we've had many talks over , uh , how we can work with our students here at the center to help enrich that , the type of work that they do , but in turn , give the students , uh , some skill enrichment as well.
S1: I know a lot of genetic testing companies. They it only maybe goes to West Africa. So does African ancestry cover the entire continent?
S2: Uh , to my knowledge , not at this stage that it's possible. I couldn't tell you right off. I don't work with them directly , but , um , to my knowledge , right now it's it's West Africa. At least that's what I've determined. But they could possibly have samples from all over Africa. Um , and , you know , and something comes up where someone has something from East Africa and they've discovered it. Um , but what I do know is they are very much focused on ethics. They destroy the DNA after , uh , they , you know , extract the data and send you the information. They don't keep any of that information , um , because they don't believe in exploiting their clients.
S1: Um , I'm curious to know , you know , how do the priorities of this center echo broader conversations we're hearing right now across the African diaspora?
S2: Uh , so the priority of the center itself. Um , does I mean , really it does echo those broader conversations because there's there's a lot of conversations around reparations around , um , and that's throughout the diaspora. Right? Um , not only in the United States , but also in the Caribbean and in other regions and , uh , reparative justice and what I call cultural justice. Uh , it depends on acknowledging a number of different things. But one of the things that I think we don't talk about much is , um , is the cultural damage that was done , not just , uh , the harm in terms of people's physical , uh , displacement and , and labor and things of that nature. But the culture that was , uh , that was that that people were separated from , but also the culture that they brought with them that was taken and exploited. Uh , and that's part of the reason why we , we look at not only the patterns that were brought here and not only how they were misinterpreted and , and misaligned , but also how they're exploited even to the present day. That's the cultural property piece. And who should have a , you know , authority over that cultural property. And and so it begs those questions , not only , you know , here in the United States , but across the African world.
S1: Can you give me an example of of cultural property and the exploitation of it? Yes.
S2: Yes. So one good example I could use is , uh , zombies. Right. People hear of zombies and voodoo. So , uh , in and that's has a relationship both to the United States but especially to Haiti. Right. Mhm. Uh , this idea that , uh , you know , that zombies are these menacing , uh , reincarnated , uh , creatures that come back to life and , uh , and terrorize people and things of that nature and that kind of stuff has been taken and used in Hollywood and has been misinterpreted , for one , because that was not the original idea of a zombie. A zombie really explained the type of exploitation , exploitative labor that people were under , and it was a metaphor for that type of , uh , exploitation that was , you know , uh , both in Haiti and particularly in Haiti , but in , in New Orleans as well , or in Louisiana as well. Uh , and it by the time it got into , you know , the silent film era and people started adapting it. Now it's a , a something that is used all over the world , and people make a lot of money from that type of interpretation through film and other mediums. Um , but it's something that is a definite misinterpretation. Uh , and then the easiest thing is , is music. Right. That , that so many musical traditions were , is started here in the Americas , uh , by people of African descent. Um , and people of African descent do not have a majority stake or control over those , over those music traditions. Um , and so looking at why that is , um , and why the , the what the politics around that really means in terms of our , uh , voice over our cultural property , uh , is very important.
S1: You know , we're having this conversation at a time when many educational and cultural programs are being scaled back or cut altogether. What does it mean to be opening a new research center right now? In this political moment?
S2: That we should be doing that , that that everyone who came together to make this idea into reality are on the right side of history. Uh , that when when you see the , um , the closing of certain institutions , the , uh , taking away from , um , institutions that haven't been closed , but are , you know , being shuttered in other ways for people to see or to hear this idea or see it written down and say , you know , in this moment , this is something very important to do. Uh , means that they are responsible people. Uh , there are people with humanity , and I and I thank everyone who , you know , helped to come together to make this possible. But it also means , in terms of the center itself , that we have a huge responsibility to to do this work and to do it as , as accurately and academically , responsibly as we possibly can , because there's a lot at stake when it comes to this type of work.
S1: You know , I want to to bring this back , um , to your research because you've done a lot of research on W.E.B. Du Bois. So how how is the vision for this center rooted in his teachings? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So Dubois , uh , had a lot of teachings. Dubois is a person who , uh , you know , he lived for 95 years and been the one who has any sense of history. He's a person who was a contemporary of both Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr , which is a very weird span of time for someone to live and still be influencing so much. Dubois spent his last years in Ghana. He was very much a Pan-African , and he very much believed in understanding the various social , political and cultural connections throughout the African world and how that might serve to liberate people of African descent and people throughout Africa. Mhm. So one of the things that is very interesting about Dubois is that when we talk about something being Afrocentric , that term itself actually comes from Dubois. The first time we see that term in writing is in 1962 , in one of his information reports about the Encyclopedia Africana. And so , uh , to want to investigate things from the African or African descendent point of view is something that the boys , you know , first conceptualized way back in 1962 and actually was developing himself before then.
S1: All right , professor Audie , we'll have to leave it there. I've been speaking with Taharqa today. He's the director of Sdsu new Africana Research and Cultural Renaissance Center , and a professor of africana studies at San Diego State University. Professor. Congratulations again. And thank you so much for joining us.
S2: Thank you for having me.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
