The Home as Refuge: Locating Homeplace Theory Within the Afrocentric Paradigm

Abstract

This project will expand and extend the current concept of homeplace, as offered by cultural critic and scholar bell hooks. In doing so, it will assess the various ways that home has been constructed by persons of African descent, and suggests that homeplace is a form of maroonage that is manifested both physically and psychologically. In addition to conceptually theorizing on homeplace, this project will also introduce Homeplace Theory, a theoretical prescriptive to the issue of diminished and erased cultural consciousness amongst persons of African descent. Additionally, this project will explain the historical and socio-cultural role the Africana woman plays in the creation and maintenance of homeplace. By privileging Afrocentricity as the primary theoretical thrust, Homeplace Theory finds an intellectual home within the Afrocentric Paradigm with the addition of Afrocentric principles in the creation and explanation of Homeplace Theory. Afrocentricity also validates the subjective inquiry of African derived phenomena. In this regard, this project fortifies the intellectual subjective investigation of the Afrocentric enterprise within the discipline of Africology/Africana Studies/African American Studies.