Groundings (2): Spaces of Slavery, Places of Freedom?
Material for class:
Tomich et. al., Reconstructing the Landscapes
Questions:
- What is the 鈥淎frican diaspora?鈥� What different approaches have scholars taken to defining it?
- How did enslavers use space and forced human movement? How did the enslaved resist?
-How can studying how people in the past used space help us address some of the archival "silences" described by Fuentes?
Readings: please choose TWO:
鈥凄颈补蝉辫辞谤补鈥�:
Mann, Kristin. 鈥淪hifting Paradigms in the Study of the African Diaspora and of Atlantic History and Culture,鈥� in (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp. 3-21
Spaces and places of enslavement and freedom:
Dale Tomich, et.al. [this is a fantastic collection as a starting point for visual 'master narratives' created by enslavers in Brazil, Cuba and the US South. You don't have to use it to talk only about planter viewpoints. It can be a good jumping-off point to talk about the enslaved people who are rendered invisible by these depictions but nonetheless were there, seeking their own definitions of these spaces.]
Marisa Fuentes, [and the intro if you are interested / have time]
Singleton, Theresa A. 鈥淪lavery and Spatial Dialectics on Cuban Coffee Plantations.鈥� World Archaeology, 33:1 (June 2001): 98-114.
Further reading:
Diaspora and Atlantic communities:
Patterson, Tiffany Ruby, and Robin D. G. Kelly. 鈥�Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World.鈥� African Studies Review, 43:1 (April 2000): 11-45.
Law, Robin, and Kristin Mann, 鈥淲est Africa in the Atlantic Community: the Case of the Slave Coast.鈥� William & Mary Quarterly, 56:2 (April 1999): 307-334.
Space and slavery:
Theresa Singleton, (2015) [develops her 2001 article - is fascinating for spatial history approach]
Tezanos Toral, Lorena. "The Architecture of Nineteenth-Century Sugar Mills: Creole Power and African Resistance in Late Colonial Cuba." PhD diss, CUNY, 2015.
J.G. Cantero and E. La Plante, 1857. [free e-book - it's in Spanish but it's mainly interesting for the PLANTATION IMAGES (lithographs) which present a 'master narrative' of slaveholding spaces - you can do a lot with this source without the actual text]
Aisha K. Finch, UNC Press 2015. [has great chapters on space and on gender, which we'll read later in the course]
Theory and methods for spatial history of slavery, beyond Brazil and Cuba:
. UNC 2004. [This book has become a fundamental reference for social and gender historians of slavery taking spatial approaches, beyond the US South which is its focus. Approachable and very much recommended!]
McKittrick, Katherine. (University of Minnesota Press, 2006).
Vincent Brown, Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War. Harvard University Press, 2020; see accompanying interactive map,
James A. Delle, (1998) [a classic reference on architectural and spatial approaches for the Jamaican case]
Mapping
Mathew Edney, "Mapping Empires, Mapping Bodies: Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Cartography," Treballs, de la Societat Catalana de Geografi, 63 (2007): 83-104.
For the above article, and other useful references on mapping practices for a different context (the British Atlantic), see Tim Lockley's second-year course: "Mapping England's Atlantic Empire," HI2E3
Place and mobilities
Tim Cresswell, Blackwell, 2004.
Mimi Sheller and John Urry, "The New Mobilities Paradigm,"Environment & Planning A (38:2): 2006.