In Brent Hayes Edwards’ essay, “The Use of Diaspora,” the term “African Diaspora” is explored critically for its intellectual history of the word. The reason Edward investigates the “intellectual history of the term” rather than a general history is because the term “is used in a particular conjecture in black academic discourse to do a particular kind of epistemological work” (Edwards 9). Early in his essay Edwards mentions the problem with the term, in terms of how it is used loosely, which is confusing to many scholars. As an intellectual Edwards understands "the confusing multiplicity" with which the term has been associated by the works of other intellectuals who have coined the term or used the term African diaspora. As an eloquent scholar, Edwards hopes to “excavate a historicized and politicized sense of diaspora” through his work in which he focuses “on a black cultural politics in the interwar period, particularly in the transnational circuits of exchange between the Renaissance of Harlem and the pre-war period”. Negritude Francophone activity in France and West Africa” (8). Throughout his essay Edwards logically attacks the problem by providing informative insight into the works that other scholars have contributed to the term. Edwards traces the intellectual history of the African diaspora eloquently. Edwards begins to articulate his argument by providing solid information on the “intellectual history” of the term from scholars who may have coined this term before the 1950s and 1960s. Edwards mentions prestigious intellectuals such as the sociologist WEB Du Bois and the activist Marcus Garvey as "committed to issues of internationalism, but the diaspora has only in the last forty years... been at the center of the paper... this is why he wants its scholars be in the mood to fill in the gaps of what appears to be unclear. In the Décalage, Edwards makes his concluding remarks in which he states: “My thesis, finally, is that the articulations of diaspora require to be. addressed in this way, through their décalage” (24). Explicitly the term décalage meaning jet lag alludes to differences “in time and space” (23). to 'walk' and 'move' in various articulations” (24). By granting flexibility to the term African diaspora, it allows scholars to explore what is “absent” and/or “different”. absent in a term like African diaspora that allows scholars to understand the difference. Works Cited Brent Hayes Edwards, “The Uses of Diaspora,” Social Text 19.1 (2001): pp.45-65