Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Identity Formation Within The Contexts Of Indenture And Slavery

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Under the European colonial institutions of slavery and indenture, hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers were displaced across the globe. The expansion of plantation agriculture and such massive labor migrations were critical to the development of global economic networks, while on the local level labor diasporas resulted in the emergence of new creolized cultures. Since major movements of people across the globe for economic reasons continue today understanding long term processes involved is of contemporary relevance. This comparative study contextualizes slave and post-slave experiences within an indentured labor regime that overlapped and replaced it. Archaeology's material and spatial nature is well suited to investigate both the daily practices and experiences of laborers, as well as the larger regional networks of which plantations were a part. This project will extend the scope of current research on and among migrant and diaspora populations, considering how choice in migration and perceptions of one's mobility influence ongoing identity practices. Engaging with transnational studies will provide a new model for archaeologists examining such populations, contribute to our understanding of the historical and material implications of labor migrations, and illuminate where and how global capitalism developed in the Indian Ocean region. This research will take place in Bras d'Eau National Park, an 18th-19th-century sugar plantation on the island of Mauritius. As part of the first large-scale investigation into an Indian Ocean plantation site, this project will add tangible heritage value to the Bras d'Eau National Park, and introduce archaeology to the Mauritian public. Mauritian students studying history and heritage and park personnel will participate in fieldwork and artifact analysis as a means to build local infrastructure and knowledge. Such exposure will increase public scientific literacy and engagement by educating about the archaeological process, and the potential of archaeological sites on Mauritius to shed light on hidden aspects of the island's past.Julia Jong Haines, under supervision of Dr. Adria LaViolette, University of Virginia, will investigate how enslaved and indentured laborers' materials and spaces reflect different social organizations and practices and how they changed over time. Were the daily lives of enslaved (mostly SE African) and indentured (mostly South Asian) laborers markedly different? What difference did laborers' homelands make in diaspora cultural practices? How were laborers engaged in local and global trade and exchange networks, and did they maintain ties to their homelands? Data and materials collected through archaeological survey, excavations, and documentary archival and oral historical research will be used to compare laborers' daily life consumption patterns that indicate foodways, personal and religious practices, domestic architecture and spatial arrangements, and participation in domestic and international economies. Engaging with both well-established creolization models and recent transnational labor migration studies, this study will determine to what degree different laborers practiced creolized identities and maintained ties to homelands while also creating new creolized practices. Untangling the complexities of creation and expression in daily life among Bras d'Eau's diverse population, this project will contribute to Mauritian heritage, and comparative archaeologies of diaspora contexts.