Afro/ Black Indigeneity & Sovereignty

In seeking to have a deep understanding of indigenous-Black identities, human and non-human, one cannot help but think about the ramifications and the intersections of anti-Black racism, slavery, gender inequality, colonialism, erasure, of history, fractured identities, sovereignty, land dispossession and violence. These issues are entangled with the spiritual, social, political and economic embodiments and structures of the lives of Black people on the African continent and in the African diaspora, and are connected to one’s sense of place and displacement, appropriation and recovery, othering and belonging.

While indigeneity in Africa and the Americas may be contested in different ways, the historical patterns of settler colonialism, cultural assimilation, identification of ancestral homelands and intensifying globalisation add to the complexity of one’s indigenous status.

In this third episode of season 3 of the Conscious Conversations podcast with me, Mmabatho Montse, we speak to Greg McNeil about African Indigeneity and Sovereignty. We share our experiences and reflections about what being Black in Africa and America has meant, what we don’t know about our history and how we can capacitate ourselves to deal with the deception of colonisation and its handlers. Greg McNeil, a Ph.D. candidate at Southwestern College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a business owner (Coaches Korner & Empowerment Center of New Mexico, LLC), regenerative leader, healer, visionary, transdisciplinary scholar, Life Coach, Co-Podcast Creator – Art of Self Change, Performance Fitness Coach, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (with diagnostic privileges), United States Air Force veteran, hunter, and adventurer.