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Raymond Familusi <familusi@msu.edu> Michigan State University |
| Address: | Urban Affairs Programs Owen Hall West Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 48824 United States |
| List Affiliations: | Advisory Board Member for H-Urban List Editor for H-Urban |
| Interests: | African American History / Studies American History / Studies Ethnic History / Studies Research and Methodology Urban History / Studies |
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Bio: I am a doctoral candidate in Sociology and Urban Studies at Michigan State University, and a member of the African Diaspora Research Project (Urban Affairs) directed by Dr. Ruth Simms Hamilton. My dissertation research focuses on the relationship between ‘race’, place and politics in the twentieth century social movements of ‘old growth’ Black settlements (established in the 18th and 19th centuries) in Nova Scotia, Canada. My sociological research in general focuses on the social construction of race and identity formation, nationalism and consciousness, collective action and human agency. I have taught junior courses on the sociology of ‘race’ and ethnicity as well as lectured and managed introductory sociology courses and cross disciplinary courses on national identity, diversity, and change. My work in urban studies focuses on critical urban theory and the role of space and place in group formation. A 1994-95 Social Science Research Council and Learners Society (New York, USA) international predissertation research fellowship (IPFP) in West Africa on identity formation and transnationalism provided an opportunity to explore this theme in a comparative study of contemporary descendants of 19th century ‘returnees’ to West Africa (Krios in Freetown, Sierra Leone and ‘Brazilian descendants’ in Lagos, Nigeria). Field research on the African Diaspora within Africa provided insight into how identity and its performance is intricately related to the social production of space at differing socio-spatial scales: locally, nationally, and internationally. This has subsequently become an important dimension of my research on the African Diaspora in Canada which was supported with a 1996-99 Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Ottawa, Canada) doctoral fellowship (SSHRRC). I am currently completing a chapter for publication entitled "The Politics of Space/Poetics of Place: Africville, Africadia, and the African Diaspora in Canada" (in Routes of Passage: Rethinking the African Diaspora, Ruth S. Hamilton, editor, Volume I, African Diaspora Research Series, Michigan State University Press, 2002 [forthcoming]). |
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