Event

Join The Department of History and Philosophy for The History Forum.  In this session, Dr. Matt Reilly, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The City College of New York will present, Post-Plantation Archaeologies in and of the Caribbean on Friday, October 29, at 2 p.m.

Register here: https://bit.ly/3G1n3Ur

Abstract: Archaeologists have recently, in part influenced by movements like Black Lives Matter, increased efforts in reckoning with their own colonial and racist disciplinary past. Inspired by such efforts, I use this paper as an opportunity to address the colonial inheritance of Caribbean historical archaeology, acknowledging its invaluable contributions as well as its shortcomings and afterlives. One persistent problem is the reluctance of archaeologists to engage with critical Caribbean scholarship, especially from the region’s most influential and radical socio-political thinkers. I therefore draw from Sylvia Wynter and Aaron Kamugisha to offer what a post-plantation form of Caribbean archaeology might look like. Drawing from three interrelated projects, primarily based in Barbados, I suggest that disentangling colonialism’s hold on regional archaeology will open new, emancipatory avenues of inquiry related to pressing issues in the contemporary Caribbean.