migrations of African people prior to the TAST. On the other end of the temporal spectrum, the Executive Council of the African Union declared in 2006 that the diaspora was the 6th region of the African Continent.22
Kiogora attempts to address the disconnect between the New and Historic Diasporas. He suggests that after the liberation of Africa, African Americans were consumed with their own struggle and Africans were consumed with national reconstruction and the pursuit of individual power.
Butler argues that diasporan theory is in its development phase as discipline. She asserts it is essentially comparative analysis of the process and pattern that define diasporic experiences. It is a framework for the “study of a specific process of community formation.” She offers a five step methodological template for diasporan research.
Butler cautions that her template is incomplete as much of diasporan theory is unwritten and embedded in oral tradition, music, art, dance and other creative experiences.23 The unwritten dimension of the diaspora is justification for the need to experience these communities.
22 Legwaila Joseph, “The Role of the Diaspora in Support of Africa’s Development” Keynote Address at the United Nations African Diaspora Leadership Forum, 3 October 2006, London http://www.un.org/africa/asia/spooeshes/USGDiaspora.drshin%20202020/2006/201
http://www.un.org/africa/osaa/speeches/USG Diaspora Ldrship %20 Forum %203%20 Oct%20 London.pdf
23 See Kim Butler, “Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse” Diaspora, Vol.10 No.2, Fall 2001
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