A Search for Home: Diasporic Constructions, Encounters, and Imaginaries

In this thesis, I draw upon interactions with African Americans living in Ghana as a means to explore some of the many factors that contribute to the acceptance of an African Diasporan identity in popular conceptions of Blackness in the United States. I seek to understand some of the complexities within Black American identites in regard to the formation of diasporan consciousnesses and the development of Pan-Africanist thought. I also explore conceptions of "home" in relation to African Diasporan identity construction and its associations with notions of "return" to a homeland or place of origin.