Welcome to Africana Studies

The Department of Africana Studies at the University of New Mexico is an interdisciplinary major degree-granting department, which provides students with a broad understanding of the political, social, and historic linkages between peoples of Africa and other African-descended people in the Southwest, the rest of the United States, and throughout the Black Diaspora in Mexico, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Black diasporic methodologies are essential to unpacking the role that the Black Diaspora plays in global cultural, revolutionary, and technological advances. Global South Studies, Afrofuturism and Afropessimism, Transgender Studies, Transnational Intersectional Feminisms are but a few of the remarkably broad range of academic and research interests and social justice imperatives that Africana Studies applies that are central to the overarching research mission of the University of New Mexico.




OUR MOTTO


 

LIFTING AS WE CLIMB

 

 OUR MISSION


Giving students of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds a full understanding of the global linkages between peoples of Africa and other African descended people in the Southwest, the contiguous United States and throughout the Black diaspora.

News and Events

Podcast Release Party

NAS release party: Multicolored triangle flags decorating the corners of a purple background celebrating a new podcast, join us for lunch and hear about future episode ideas
Native American Studies is hosting a release party for their new podcast!

Wednesday March 12th 12-1pm, Mesa Vista Hall Room 3080


SPOTLIGHT ON...

Marsha HardemanBlack History: The More We Know, The More We Grow

It’s (Probably) Not Rocket Science, featured a conversation with Marsha Hardeman, a professor in UNM’s Africana Studies Department, who shared her journey of growing up in the segregated South to championing Black history in education. Hardeman’s powerful storytelling connects past struggles to today’s challenges, reminding us why preserving history matters—and how storytelling makes that history much more real and accessible.

View the podcast

It's (probably) not Rocket Science