Interviews with Dr. Sheila S Walker
Cultural Anthropologist and Documentary Filmmaker
Sheila S Walker
See My DocumentariesDr. Walker has been interviewed about her research and intellectual production in many media outlets in various parts of the world, from the NY African Film Festival, to the Rock Newman Show at Howard University in Washington, DC, to programs in Rio and Brasilia in Brazil, as well as in Dakar, Senegal.
Howard Dodson in conversation with Dr. Sheila S. Walker, New York African Film Festival
The NY African Film Festival included this interview on its website to accompany my documentaries that it featured in May 2021 with some of my articles. The interview by the former chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture allowed me to discuss spending a formative summer with a family in Central Africa and as a result becoming a cultural anthropologist researching the Global African Diaspora.
The Rock Newman Show, Howard University Television (WHUT), Washington, DC
This interview involved an exploration of my research on the Global African Diaspora, beginning with my experiences in Central Africa as an adolescent exchange student living with a family that put me on my research path. At a time when U.S. media were relentlessly presenting Africa as savage and primitive, I lived in the capital of the sophisticated and culturally rich Bamum Kingdom in Foumban in Cameroon. This was the Africa in which I had my first international experiences and learned of the global presence of people and culture of African origin.
TV Cámara, Brazilian House of Representatives Television, Brasilia
This interview focuses on comparing the positions in their respective societies of U.S. African Americans and Afro-Brazilians. It was done in a period when Brazil was implementing affirmative action models inspired by the United States and had a federal law mandating the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture. Such a positive national law is impossible in the United States since education is not federal, but depends on states and even cities and counties.
African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas, Fulton County Library, GA
The interview involved a discussion of my edited volume, African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas, which is composed of enlightening, provocative, and groundbreaking articles. The book, as well as a complementary documentary, “Scattered Africa: Faces and Voices of the African Diaspora,” are results of the international conference I organized on “The African Diaspora and the Modern World” in 1996.
African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas, CBS Interview with JC Hayward
This broadcast on “JC and Friends on 9News at 5pm,” by acclaimed media personality JC Hayward, included showing my documentary, “Scattered Africa: Faces and Voices of the African Diaspora,” and was followed by a book signing at TransAfrica, which was then an influential African American lobby for Africa and the Caribbean.
Why African Americans Need to Know about our History and Culture and our African Heritage
This interview when I was Director of the Center for African and African American Studies and a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin addressed the relentlessly international emphasis I brought to directing the Center. It emphasized the importance of learning about U.S. African American history and culture, and about our African heritage and how it remains present in our twenty-first century lives.
The Global African Diaspora speaks many languages as a result of European colonization, the four major languages of the Diaspora being Portuguese, English, Spanish and French. These interviews reflect that reality.
Blacks à Washington Partie 2 : Le rapport avec les africains-américains
Dans cette vidéo, je parle anglais et les autres parlent français. Le français n’est pas sous-titré. Washington, DC est le foyer des deux communautés africaines de la diaspora que l’écrivain et présentateur Alain Foka documente dans Blacks à Washington: Le rapport avec les africains-américains – partie 2 dans le cadre de sa série Blacks dans le Monde. Foka dit : “La première diaspora a été déportée d’Afrique contre son gré enchaînée il y a plusieurs siècles dans les cales des navires de ses esclavagistes. La seconde est venu volontairement ces dernières décennies et s’est installée parmi des gens qui leur ressemblent.”
Cultne em Resenha, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Cultne em Resenha é um programa de entrevistas on-line, que destaca figuras significativas no Brasil e em outros lugares da diáspora africana. Minha pesquisa de campo no Brasil, a primeira nação africana nas Américas e a maior população da Diáspora Africana Global, me permitiu comparar a cultura afro-brasileira e a cultura africana americana dos EUA. Muito do que é óbvio no Brasil é menos óbvio, mas ainda está presente, nos Estados Unidos. Assim, tendo o Brasil como espelho, eu pude compreender mais da africanidade de minha própria cultura afro-estadunidense.
Entrevista para el Año de Manuel Zapata Olivella, Activista Intelectual y Cultural Afrocolombiano
El Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia designó 2020 como el Año de Manuel Zapata Olivella por sus voluminosas y diversas investigaciónes y su cuerpo de escritos sobre la vida afrocolombiana y la diáspora africana, así como por su significativo activismo cultural. Esta entrevista fue parte de una serie de eventos que analizaron y daban a conocer las inmensas contribuciones a la cultura afrocolombiana, colombiana, afrodiaspórica y global de Manuel Zapata Olivella.
Apresentando Meu Filme e Meu Livro, TV Supren, Brasília
Apresentei meu documentário Rostos familiares / lugares inesperados: Uma diáspora africana global, e meu livro, Conhecimento desde dentro: Os afro-sul-americanos falam de seus povos e suas histórias em vários lugares do Brasil. Esta entrevista foi especialmente interessante porque eu, uma afro-estadunidense, fui entrevistada por uma angolana depois de compartilhar minhas experiências e conhecimento com afro-brasileiros sobre a Diáspora Africana Global.