Colloquium Series - The co-production of place and history: a landscape approach to region making

Abstract: How does a region come into being and what does it take to sustain it?

This talk uses landscape to re-narrate the history of a once prosperous region located off the southeastern coast of the United States. Since the early twentieth century, the Georgia Sea Islands and the Lowcountry have drawn culturalists who celebrate the unique lifeways of African Americans. However, the region has also inspired a significant collection of historical studies that feature elite planters often celebrated as innovators and savvy entrepreneurs. In contrast to approaches to history that analytically isolate histories of economic development, on the one hand, and culture, on the other hand, a landscape approach brings attention to both humans and nonhumans. For some time, landscape was banished in the humanities and social sciences. Yet, landscape is being redefined in exciting ways. My approach considers an expanded group of participants, including Native Americans, African Americans, and plantation owners, as well as crops, diseases, soil, and water, in the making of the region. The talk uses historical and ethnographic research to reconsider the famous plantation economies of the U.S. Southeast as they transformed both people and environments.

Dr. Paulla Ebron is currently an Associate Professor at Stanford University. She  joined the department in 1992. Ebron is the author of Performing Africa, a work based on her research in The Gambia that traces the significance of West African praise-singers in transnational encounters. A second project focuses on tropicality and regionalism as it ties West Africa and the U.S. Georgia Sea Islands in a dialogue about landscape, memory and political uplift. This project is entitled, "Making Tropical Africa in the Georgia Sea Islands."