Introduction -- Moving Fieldwork: Traveling with Americans to and from Africa -- Vexed Ties: Africa in an out of America -- Back to Nature: American's Great African Adventure -- Through the Glass: Encountering the Unexpected in Africa -- Disrupting the Hyphen: Identity and Belonging in America -- "How do they know I am American?" Travel and the Discovery of Home -- Suffering Beauty: How to Save Africa without Changing It -- Conclusion: Saving Africa: Love in the Time of Oprah
Summary
Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa uses observations of American travelers to southern Africa to ask: why is Africa so important to Americans? These travel stories show how encounters with Africans lead to a problematic desire to save Africa. Kathryn Mathers argues that this is then seen as a way to resolve the tensions between aspirations for a globally responsible America and the current reality of its geopolitical role. This book draws fascinating new conclusions about the connections and disconnections on which contemporary American identity is formed
