This book utilizes theories concerning modes of symbolic expression, formation and maintenance of social group identities, and the role of individual creativity and innovation, to analyze the past creation and use of material expressions of core symbols within the diasporas of European and African cultures, such as the BaKongo, Yoruba, Fon, and Palatine German, among others. I explore the divergent ways these creative processes played out at sites in North America, the Caribbean, and South America. Finding shortfalls in the current uses of creolization concepts, I define a concept of "ethnogenic bricolage" as a process involved in these cultural developments in locations of the New World. I also examine beliefs and practices among European Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, principally from archaeology sites in the United States, and the ways that forms of instrumental symbolism reflected in artifacts from those sites were shaped by dynamics similar to those seen in African diasporas. These independently developed beliefs and practices from Europe and Africa came to meet at "crossroads" of the New World. This book, which includes a Foreword by Robert Farris Thompson, is available from the University Press of Florida.

Description from the publisher and reviewers:

"An intriguing analysis of religious artifacts that provides an innovative conceptual framework and methodology for the archaeological study of diasporas. It greatly advances our understanding of cultural creativity over simplistic notions of creolization." -- Theresa Singleton, Syracuse University.

"A far-reaching anthropological study of African and African American religions, German American folkways, and archaeological methodology." -- Leland Ferguson, University of South Carolina.

"The notion of 'emblematic' vs. 'instrumental' symbolism provides an exciting new model for analyzing material culture and its meanings for the people who produced it and used it." -- Anna Sophia Agbe-Davies, DePaul University.

Christopher Fennell offers a fresh perspective on ways that the earliest enslaved Africans preserved vital aspects of their traditions and identities in the New World. He also explores similar developments among European immigrants and the interactions of both groups with Native Americans.

Focusing on extant artifacts left by displaced Africans, Fennell finds that material culture and religious ritual contributed to a variety of modes of survival in mainland North America as well as in the Caribbean and Brazil. Over time, new symbols of culture led to further changes in individual customs and beliefs as well as the creation of new social groups and new expressions of identity.

Presenting insights from archaeology, history, and symbolic anthropology, this book traces the dynamic legacy of the trans-Atlantic diasporas over four centuries, and it challenges existing concepts of creolization and cultural retention. In the process, it examines some of the major cultural belief systems of west and west central Africa, specific symbols of the BaKongo and Yoruba cosmologies, development of prominent African-American religious expressions in the Americas, and the Christian and non-Christian spiritual traditions of German-speaking immigrants from central Europe.

Chapters include: 1. Introduction: Diasporas, Histories, and Heritage. 2. From the Diminutive to the Transatlantic. 3. Shared Meanings and Culture Dynamics; Core Symbols across a Continuum; A Core Symbol of the Bakongo Culture; Marking Social Group Contours; Expressions of Group Identity and Individual Purpose. 4. A Model for Diaspora Analysis; Interpreting Cultural Expressions through Ethnohistorical Analogy; Bakongo Culture in West Central Africa. 5. African Diasporas and Symbolism in the New World; Private Rituals in North America; Yoruba and Bakongo Dynamics in Cuba; Innovation of New Emblems in Haiti and Brazil; Afro-Christian Dynamics in North America. 6. European Diasporas and the Persistence of Magic; From the Palatinate to Virginia; Hexerei Practices among German Americans; Social Networks and Interpersonal Conflicts; Expressions Instrumental and Emblematic. 7. Creolization, Hybridity, and Ethnogenic Bricolage.

About the author: I am an anthropologist specializing in historical archaeology as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a faculty affiliate of the Center for African Studies and the African American Studies Program. My research projects address aspects of African-American cultural heritage and the dynamics of social group affiliations among African Americans and European Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These research efforts include the development of interpretative frameworks focusing on regional systems theories, diaspora studies, theories concerning social group identities, ethnic group dynamics and racialization, stylistic and symbolic analysis of material culture, and the significance of consumption patterns. I am also the editor of the African Diaspora Archaeology Network and Newsletter. A list of my publications, research papers, other works in progress, and course offerings is provided in my resume.