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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5637-4090
AccessType
Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Afro-American Studies
Year Degree Awarded
2021
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
Ernest Allen, Jr.
Second Advisor
James Smethurst
Third Advisor
John H. Bracey, Jr.
Fourth Advisor
Gilbert McCauley
Subject Categories
African American Studies | Africana Studies | Australian Studies | Cultural History | Indigenous Studies | United States History | Women's History
Abstract
“Afro-Aboriginal Encounters” is a study of the intersections and interactions between the Aboriginal Black Power Movement and the Black Arts Movement in the United States and Australia, respectively. It fills a significant gap in the study of the Black Arts Movement by exploring its relevance with Aboriginal people, and in a broader scope, non-African diasporic communities. Much like recent studies that continue to elevate the Black Panther Party as the stalwarts of internationalist activity during the Black Power Era, this study situates the internationalism embedded in Aboriginal activist Bob Maza and African American choreographer and institution builder Carole Johnson. By focusing on Maza and Johnson, “Afro-Aboriginal Encounters” traces their interactions with various central figures and organizations during the Black Power Era in the United States and Australia to gain a great awareness of their cultural work that was part and parcel with their political activism. This project utilizes a wide breadth of interviews, archival footage, and archival collections housed in the United States and Australia, respectively, to gain a critical understanding of the adoption and adaptation of core tenants of cultural self-definition and self-determination embedded in the work of Black Arts practitioners and located in their resonance with Aboriginal activists. Ultimately, this study elevates the Black Arts Movement into international dimensions that create new frameworks to understand the broader “Black” (as non-white) World during the Black Power Era.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/22488750.0
Recommended Citation
Carter, Alex M., "AFRO-ABORIGINAL ENCOUNTERS: BLACK ARTS AND THE GLOBAL POLITICS OF BLACK POWER" (2021). Doctoral Dissertations. 2168.
https://doi.org/10.7275/22488750.0
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2168