The revitalized student group, formally known as Baba Africa, now known as Afrikiya, sponsored the presentation on the African international student experience at Furman\u00a0on March 24. Janet\u00a0D.\u00a0Kwami, an associate professor of communication studies, and Laura Baker, an outreach librarian and Pathways advisor, facilitated the event.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Ellis-Edinkrah-Ivan-Agyaakwah.jpg\")
From left: Ellis Edinkrah ’25 and Ivan Agyaakwah ’25 during the CLP<\/p><\/div>\n
A reshaping of narratives<\/strong><\/p>\n Jake Raine, a sophomore majoring in business, learned that various African nations place cultural meaning in distinctive fabrics unique to each nation, and compared the tradition to the absence of such a practice in his home country of England.<\/p>\n \u201cEach of the 54 countries in Africa individually have so much to offer, and the\u00a0naivet\u00e9\u00a0of the rest of the world is extreme, myself included,” he wrote in a reflection piece afterward. “(We)\u00a0should all make a conscious effort to broaden our horizons and learn more about each individual country and stop treating that massive, beautiful continent as one big country!\u201d<\/p>\n Like Raine, Lola Reyes \u201922, said the presentation by African students taught her not only about African nations but made her aware of false and dangerous narratives.<\/p>\n \u201cI began thinking a lot about how the world abroad, and Africa specifically, is presented in America,\u201d wrote Reyes in her reflection piece. \u201cIt is always presented as very poor, dirty, and homogenous, when that is simply not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n Perceptions of ‘others’<\/strong><\/p>\n Kwami said such events give students a historical, social, political and cultural lens to understand Africa\u2019s diversity and help to cultivate world citizenship by developing a better understanding of those who are different from them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt provides the opportunity for students to reflect upon practices that contour their perceptions of \u2018others\u2019 by centering African students\u2019 culture and self-representation in an effort toward engaging students in the appreciation of the diversity and rich culture African students bring to Furman’s campus,\u201d said Kwami.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal here is to enhance intercultural dialogue and encourage social inclusion of underrepresented groups on campus. I believe such intercultural interactions and dialogue among students give voice to underrepresented students, more specifically African students on campus, to share with pride their cultural heritage as a central part of their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Associate Professor of Communication Studies Janet Kwami and Laura Baker, who is an\u00a0outreach librarian and Pathways advisor, display a kora, an instrument that symbolizes storytelling and is usually played by a griot. A griot is a West African storyteller, singer, musician and oral historian. This kora is from the library\u2019s Special Collections and Archives, where it is on loan. It belongs to South Carolina poet and internationally celebrated performer Kurtis Lamkin.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-four-news-2nd-story","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Kwami-and-Baker.jpg\")