What’s my original name ? : Changement de nom, transnationalisation et revendications identitaires dans le nationalisme noir états-unien

• Main Author: Pauline Guedj
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherches sur les Mondes Américains 2010-03-01
• Series: Nuevo mundo - Mundos Nuevos
• Subjects: United States; Akan; Black Nationalism; Name; Transnational networks; ritual practices
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/59182

Since the beginning of the 20th century, name changing has been at the center of conversion processes in many African American religious and political movements. While adopting a new religion, the member of the movement had to renounce his American civil identity and to adopt a new name, seen as his original identity. The new name thus became a testimony of an “original” culture thought of as unchanging and genuine despite the enslavement of their ancestors. Grounded in an ethnography of the American « Akan » movement, this article describes and analyzes various name changing rituals and discourses. In particular, we will see how with the rise of cultural nationalism, name changing became a complex ritual dealing with divination, reincarnation, and identity constructions.