The Rhizome of Blackness

The Rhizome of Blackness: A Critical Ethnography of Hip-Hop Culture, Language, Identity, and the Politics of Becoming
TitleThe Rhizome of Blackness: A Critical Ethnography of Hip-Hop Culture, Language, Identity, and the Politics of Becoming
Publication TypeBook
Year of Publication2014
AuthorIbrahim, Awad
Number of Pages239
PublisherPeter Lang Publishing
CityNew York, NY
ISSN Number1947-5985
KeywordsBlackness, Culture, Identity, Youth
URLhttp://www.amazon.com/The-Rhizome-Blackness-Critical-Ethnography/dp/1433126028
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The Rhizome of Blackness is a critical ethnographic documentation of the process of how continental African youth are becoming Black in North America. They enter a "social imaginary" where they find themselves already falling under the umbrella of Blackness. For young Africans, Hip-Hop culture, language, and identity emerge as significant sites of identification; cultural, linguistic, and identity investment. The result of this dialectic space between language learning and identity investment is a complex, multilayered, and "rhizomatic third space," where Canada meets and rubs shoulders with Africa in downtown Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal in such a way that it produces its own "ticklish subject" and pedagogy of imaginary and integrative anti-racism.