Thirteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

My paper examines the role played by the ankh in preserving and transforming the imaginary of Black people across the globe. In the current imaginary, the ankh crosses boundaries between religion, justice, politics and memory. At a time when many descendants of enslaved Africans sought to reconnect with Africa, those who possessed material objects they brought with them to the New World sometimes returned with said objects and reclaimed their culture and association with Africa. However, the history of the ankh and how it was designed had a different meaning in Ghana where the oral history preserved the meaning of the split ankh as compared to a whole ankh. The ankh, as used in the work of Armah, helps understand the worldview and social class of many Blacks across the globe. The story of the ankh could be told and retold as the physical ankh traveled. However, the historical memory of the ankh, preserved in the oral cultures of sedentary preliterate cultures, reveals a different history, not only of the ankh, but of the social and political dynamics of colonized as well as those in the diaspora. While formal literacy might appear to hold sway on historical knowledge and accuracy, there are places where oral history and knowledge, through story-telling (narrative inquiry or history) give legitimacy to contrasting understandings of a longing for a lost world for Black people across the world.