Continent to Diaspora: Reverse Conversations

A working circle to bridge a real gap. Continental African women and African-diaspora women too often talk past each other. We carry parallel histories that intersect in specific and specific-only ways. We have built different cultures, different relationships to power, different relationships to the African continent itself, and different vocabularies. This network sets up structured monthly conversations on specific topics, across the two sides, with the goal of building understanding that is durable.

Membership is split roughly between continental African women and African-diaspora women, by design. Continental members live in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Cape Town, Addis Ababa, Dakar, Kigali, Kampala, Casablanca, and across the continent. Diaspora members live in Atlanta, New York, London, Toronto, Brixton, Paris, Brooklyn, Houston, Detroit, Oakland, and across the African diaspora globally. We deliberately keep the ratio close to balanced. New cohorts admitted twice a year, with attention to maintaining the balance.

What we talk about. Labor and migration. The economic forces that have moved African women out of the continent and the ones that have kept African-American and Afro-Caribbean women in the United States and the United Kingdom. The decisions our mothers and grandmothers made and what we have inherited from those decisions. The contemporary brain-drain conversation. The reverse-migration conversation, where diaspora women are returning to the continent for work and what that has been like.

Beauty standards. The continent's contemporary engagement with skin-lightening products, which is a structural problem with global supply chains and not a personal failing of consumers. The diaspora's natural-hair movement and how it has and has not reached the continent. The way beauty is negotiated in different national contexts, from very traditional to very contemporary. The conversation about weight, which differs by region and country.

Marriage. The continental marriage tradition in different countries — bride price, dowry, family negotiations, the role of extended family in choosing a spouse. The diaspora marriage tradition, which has often broken away from those structures or modified them. The interactions when diaspora women marry continental men and vice versa. The expectations on each side and how members have negotiated them.

Ancestry. The complicated work of diaspora-to-continent ancestral connection. The DNA tests that have shown specific ethnic origins for some members and the slow work of engaging with those specific communities. The members who have been formally welcomed into ancestral communities and the members who have not. The Ghana 'Year of Return' and what it actually delivered. The parallel programs in other countries. The honest acknowledgement of how complicated the homecoming is for both sides.

Return travel. The trips diaspora women have made to specific countries on the continent. The trips that have been transformative. The trips that have been disappointing. The trips where members were treated as wealthy tourists rather than as returning daughters. The continental members' honest perspective on hosting diaspora visitors. The slow building of better travel experiences for both sides.

Politics. The pan-African political tradition, from Nkrumah and Padmore through to contemporary continental and diaspora intellectual work. The disagreements within the pan-African tradition. The recent African Union diaspora engagement initiatives. The state of various national movements on the continent and the way diaspora women have and have not engaged with them.

The slavery conversation. The conversation about which African nations participated in the transatlantic slave trade and the contemporary reckoning with that participation. The conversations about reparations. The conversations about apology. The conversations about acknowledgment. We do not let this conversation become a wedge that divides us. We work it through.

Investment and business. The continental business landscape and the diaspora investment landscape. The way diaspora-to-continent investment has gone well and the way it has gone badly. The fintech, agritech, and creative-industries development. The work of building business relationships across the diaspora-continent line that are actually durable.

The cultural work. The film, literature, fashion, and music that have moved between continent and diaspora. The Afrofuturism conversation. The Afrobeats movement. The Nollywood and Nairobi cinema and South African film industry. The way diaspora women are consuming continental cultural production and the way continental women are consuming diaspora cultural production.

Cadence: monthly virtual conversation on a structured topic, always with paired continental and diaspora facilitators. Monthly long-form thread for asynchronous conversation. Quarterly in-person convening (rotating between continental and diaspora cities). An annual flagship gathering. Smaller working groups on specific topics — investment, return travel, ancestry research, intergenerational dialogue — for members who want to go deeper.

Rules. Real conversation, not flattering conversation. We name disagreements clearly and we stay in the conversation through them. We do not perform pan-African unity that papers over actual differences. Confidentiality on personal matters. No screenshotting.

What we are: the working group for the real conversation between continental African women and African-diaspora women. The conversation we owe each other. The conversation that has been bottlenecked by distance and by the absence of structured spaces for it. Here is the structure. Here is the space. Now we do the work.