3.2
CONTEXT
SADACCA and African-Caribbean Diasporic In Sheffield, The District African Caribbean Community Association (SADACCA) was established in 1986 on the foundations of the Sheffield West Indian Association. The latter was initially founded in 1955 by the first-generation Afro-Caribbean migrants in the city, also referred to as the Windrush generation. The organisation expanded its reach to accommodate the influx of migrants from diverse African-Caribbean backgrounds but also to provide spaces for care activities for the community. Shortly after, community wellness groups, social clubs and support structures providing care services began to spring forth, and in response Sheffield began to acknowledge the growing culture and population, albeit passively and unenthusiastically.
challenging the validity of an essentialist cultural identity imposed by the coloniser on colonised populations. It is the failure to establish a singular and universal sociospatial framework of identity for the ‘other’ that creates the indeterminate spaces of “disruption and displacement of hegemonic colonial narratives and cultural structures and practices” (Bhabha 1994; Bhabha 1996; Paul 1998). The third space is a production of a culture that is familiar but with new
When approached, the city leased the Wicker building, an old steel factory near the river and tucked away in the part of the city that was not deemed desirable for locals, to SADACCA and its community members to carry out their cultural practices. The building had previously been unoccupied for ten years and was in a state of severe disrepair. Community volunteers and the community Elders set out to create a space that was livable and that could host a range of activities as needed. These activities spanned health services, day care groups for elders and young children, Saturday school to impact knowledge, church services, a women’s support group, mental health associations, gardening and food classes and parties in the main hall. Thus, this African-Caribbean community occupied a central place in post-colonial urban landscape of Sheffield. The community subverted inequity, racism, alienation and colliding cultural differences to form a palpable space that Homi Bhaba would describe as; “something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new era of negotiation of meaning and recognition” (Bhabha, 2001). The spaces and the practices within were borne in response to a gap in the infrastructure of care within the city and resulted in the creation of niche spaces; a ‘third space’ to accommodate a diasporic culture, one of hybridity. Bhabha (1994) explains hybrid identity and third space in postcolonial discourse as emerging from
Fig 3.
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SADACCA Community Centre (Source: Online - SADDACA Facebook
