Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Religion and Social Relations: A case study of Quaker Ideology and the Practice of Caribbean Slavery

在Laurie Wilkie博士的指导下，John Chenoweth先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。宗教是一种文化现象，通过它，社会身份的其他方面可以被表达、协商、争论和明确。如果日常生活对文化变迁和民族形成有影响，就像大多数考古学家认为的那样，那么宗教意识形态对日常生活的影响程度就是一个重要的变量。该项目将通过对18世纪加勒比种植园的研究来评估宗教作为社会关系结构原则的力量，该种植园是白人地主家庭，贵格会宗教团体成员和至少7名被奴役的非洲人的家园。研究地点位于英属维尔京群岛托尔托拉附近的一个155英亩的无人岛，其中10英亩已被确定为保存完好的18世纪住宅。该研究假设贵格会的宗教意识形态将改变社会关系，与没有这种意识形态的地方产生明显的物质差异，甚至以牺牲经济理性为代价。由于贵格会意识形态与奴隶制之间的矛盾，有人预测，宗教将在贵格会所有者与他们所拥有的非洲奴隶之间的关系中得到最清晰的考古识别。为了解决这个问题，该项目将采用地面调查和重点挖掘被奴役者和主人的房屋。这项研究将作为Chenoweth先生的学术培训和他作为研究人员的专业知识发展的一个组成部分。

Under the direction of Dr. Laurie Wilkie, Mr. John Chenoweth will collect data for his doctoral dissertation thesis. Religion is a cultural phenomenon through which other aspects of social identity can be articulated, are negotiated, contested, and made explicit.If daily life has an effect on cultural change and ethnogenesis, as most archaeologists would argue, then the degree to which religious ideology affected daily life is an important variable. This project will evaluate the strength of religion as a structuring principle in social relations through the study of an 18th century Caribbean plantation which was home to the white landowning family, members of the Quaker religious group, and at least 7 enslaved Africans. The study site is a now uninhabited, 155 acre island near Tortola, in the British Virgin Island, ten acres of which have been identified as containing heavy 18th century habitation with excellent preservation. The study hypothesizes that religious ideology of Quakerism will alter social relations, producing observable material differences from sites where that ideology is absent, even at the expense of economic rationality. Because of the contradictions between Quaker ideology and the practice of slavery, it is predicted that religion will be most clearly identifiable archaeologically in the relationship between the Quaker owners and the enslaved Africans they held. The project will employ surface survey and focused excavations of the homes of the enslaved and the owners in order to address this question.The research will serve as an integral part of Mr. Chenoweth's academic training and to the development of his expertise as a researcher.