What is Africana Studies?
Africana Studies is a field of study that is interdisciplinary in focus. The Institute teaches classes ranging from sociology, political science, history, and education among our diverse offerings. More specifically at UCONN, for three decades we have trained our students to critically analyze the varied experiences of people of African descent globally and locally. We have a strong public history presence that focuses on Black people in New England and Connecticut that helps the program remain committed to the principles that Africana Studies was founded on, community engagement.
Why Major in Africana Studies?
Alumni Profiles
Our alumni have a wide range research interests. Click the link below to view their profiles and why they chose Africana Studies!
Upcoming Events
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Mar
20
Reproductive Justice: The Intersection of Health, Rights, and Social Justice 6:30pm
Reproductive Justice: The Intersection of Health, Rights, and Social Justice
Wednesday, March 20th, 2024
06:30 PM
Student Union
Reproductive justice is a feminist framework, developed by women of color, that center’s the needs of the most marginalized and affirms our human right to bodily autonomy and to live healthy lives with access to the necessary physical, mental, political, economic, social, and sexual resources for the well-being of all people. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments.
This discussion will examine and highlight the disparities in care, access, and how it affects Black maternal health and mortality rates. Attendees will also understand the reproductive justice framework, learn about access and advocacy in Connecticut, and the barriers students have in accessing care.
Please register using the button to the left.
Join us at the Women’s Center for a Watch Party!
This panel is sponsored by the Women’s Center and the UConn Foundation as part of the #ThisIsAmerica series.
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Mar
27
Africana Book Talk with Dr. Fumi Showers 4:00pm
Africana Book Talk with Dr. Fumi Showers
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
04:00 PM
Homer Babbidge Library
Join the Africana Studies Institute in collaboration with the Department of Sociology as their joint faculty member Dr. Fumi Showers discusses her first book, Migrants Who Care: West Africans Working an Building Lives in U.S. Health Care.
As the U.S. population ages and as health care needs become more complex, demand for paid care workers in home and institutional settings has increased. This book draws attention to the reserve of immigrant labor that is called on to meet this need. Migrants Who Care tells the little-known story of a group of English-speaking West African immigrants who have become central to the U.S. health and long-term care systems. With high human capital and middle-class pre-migration backgrounds, these immigrants - hailing from countries as diverse as Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia - encounter blocked opportunities in the U.S. labor market. They then work in the United States, as home health aides, certified nursing assistants, qualified disability support professionals, and licensed practical and registered nurses.
This book reveals the global, political, social, and economic factors that have facilitated the entry of West African women and men into the health care labor force (home and institutional care for older adults and individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities; and skilled nursing). It highlights these immigrants’ role as labor brokers who tap into their local ethnic and immigrant communities to channel co-ethnics to meet this labor demand. It illustrates how West African care workers understand their work across various occupational settings and segments in the health care industry. This book reveals the transformative processes migrants undergo as they become produced, repackaged, and deployed as health care workers after migration.
Ultimately, this book tells the very real and human story of an immigrant group surmounting tremendous obstacles to carve out a labor market niche in health care, providing some of the most essential and intimate aspects of care labor to the most vulnerable members of society. -
Mar
28
Exhibit Reception - Respond Personally: Commemorating the 1974 Black Student Sit-In 3:00pm
Exhibit Reception - Respond Personally: Commemorating the 1974 Black Student Sit-In
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
The Dodd Center for Human Rights
50th Anniversary Exhibition commemorating the direct action taken by Black and Brown students on the Storrs campus to challenge structural racism in higher education by sitting in at the Wilbur Cross Library on April 22nd 1974. This historic event of activism, where roughly 370 students occupied the library at varying times across 3 days, was the culminating event during a semester long campaign of student organizing to demand representation and resources for students of color at the University of Connecticut. Through curated documents this exhibition will feature the perspectives of the student organizers, the Afro-American Cultural Center, the University and its administration to portray this campus-wide call to action which resonates to our present day. This 50th anniversary is also an opportunity to highlight approaches to student activism and the centrality of the library as an institutional setting both for democracy and also one vulnerable to upholding systems of oppression.
This exhibition draws from the experiences of alumni Rodney Bass (’75BA/’76MA) who read the demands during the sit-in and was co-chair of the Organization of African American Students (OAAS). The archives podcast d’Archive produced an interview with Rodney about Black student organizing in the mid-1970s on the Storrs campus which is revealing in understanding their approach to making demands upon the university for their representation in the student body.
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Apr
9
Ampe: Leap for the Sky Black Girl Screening Event 7:00pm
Ampe: Leap for the Sky Black Girl Screening Event
Tuesday, April 9th, 2024
07:00 PM
Konover Auditorium, Dodd Center
Don’t miss the screening the film Ampe: Leap into the Sky Black Girl. Following the film, there will be a Q&A with the film’s directors, Ife Oluwamuyide and Claudia Owusu.
This event is cosponsored by the Africana Studies Institute and the Humanities Institute
Contact Information:
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Apr
11
Drs. Barbara and Carlton Molette Scholarship and Award Dinner 5:00pm
Drs. Barbara and Carlton Molette Scholarship and Award Dinner
Thursday, April 11th, 2024
05:00 PM
UConn Foundation
The Africana Studies Institute presents the Drs. Barbara and Carlton Molette Scholarship Award! The Institute will celebrate our undergraduate award recipients, our faculty’s accomplishments and our alumni!
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