The 2024 Black Muslim Psychology Conference (BMPC2024) explores the beautiful and complicated intersections of belonging, home, migration [voluntary or forced], and identity. Our discussions invite a deep and soulful exploration of HOME & HIJRA, and of LONGING. It delves into the concept of home as a physical space, a cultural anchor, and an emotional sanctuary; invites critical examination and appreciation of intentional community building and striving for sovereignty; acknowledges feelings of grief and nostalgia associated with the dispossession of Black/African people due to climate crises, gentrification, political instability.

 

In bell hooks' Belonging: A Culture of Place [2009, Chapter 13: A Place Where A Soul Can Rest] she uses the metaphor of the porch as a place or site of resistance to dehumanization. At MWF and BMPC, we argue that these places - porches or otherwise resistant and nourishing spaces - are keys to mitigating the harm caused by the violence of anti-black racism as well as religious marginalization. Black Muslims cultivate “places where our souls can rest” and this cultivation leads to collective well-being and fortification. This year, our discussions invite a deep and soulful exploration of HOME & HIJRA, and of LONGING.

• Longing for Home delves into the concept of home as a physical space, a cultural anchor, and an emotional sanctuary. 

• Longing for Home invites critical examination and appreciation of intentional African American communities in the US and West Africa (for example Medina Baye in Senegal) to migration of African descended people to Europe and North America (countries of former colonizers).

• Longing for Home acknowledges feelings of grief and nostalgia associated with the dispossession of Black/African people due to climate crises, gentrification, political instability.

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At BMPC2024, we will explore these questions:

• In our pursuit of knowledge of the past - how do we gather, preserve and embrace our personal and collective stories of migration, identity, belonging, and rootedness?

• How do we challenge ourselves to think deeply about who we are, who we are becoming, the wounds we are carrying, the spiritual fortitude we possess, and the values we are striving towards to imagine and cultivate a healthy future?

• Sankofa comes from the Akan/West African proverb: Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyiri - It is not wrong to go back for what you have forgotten (or left behind). As we look forward towards an uncertain, yet potentially abundant future - what must remember and bring with us in order to thrive?