Introduction

The introduction introduces the book to the reader, starting with what motivated the research and the social issues involved. The first section looks at the author’s encounter with “blackness” in Sudan and later in Canada. This includes some of the motivating conversations and experiences that informed the author’s journey to the scholarly study of “blackness.” This is followed by the complexity of “blackness” as an identity reality among continental Africans when they move to North America. Since Africans identify using their ethnic groups and countries of origin, adapting involuntarily to the “black” identity in North America can be confusing and disorienting but informative at the same time. Using empirical examples, this dynamic is then used to underscore why studying “blackness” as an imposed social identity is important in the context of epistemic power and marginality. This is followed by the rationale for using phenomenology as the framework, methodological questions, the scope of the research, and some useful terminologies used in the book. The introduction ends with the summary of the chapters.