Ayana Omilade Flewellen | Witnessing the Persistence of Colonial Violence at Heritage Sites Through Coral Limestone on St. Croix

This presentation concerns itself with how archaeologists and other heritage studies professionals contend with temporal ruptures on landscapes that hold African Diasporic histories. Coral stones lay the foundation of colonial architecture on the island of St. Croix in the USVI. This presentation explores how buildings constructed of coral stones during the colonial era are still in use today, either restored or repurposed, along with examples of how coral is being used as an artistic medium in contemporary sculptures that rupture time and demand heritage studies professionals to tend to the persistence of colonial violence in the present. Here coral — via the structures built out of it — is discussed as a mnemonic device for the biophysical afterlife of slavery. In this work, linear temporal distinctions of past, present, and future are called into question on St. Croix, where colonial structures act as ruptures in conceptualizations of time and serve as palimpsestual reminders of the past in the present.

About the Speaker

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Dr. Ayana Omilade Flewellen (Stanford University) is a Black feminist, archaeologist, artistic scholar, and storyteller. They are the co-founder and current President of the Society of Black Archaeologists and sits on the Board of Diving With A Purpose. Their research and teaching interests address Black Feminist Theory, historical archaeology, memory, maritime heritage conservation, public and community-engaged archaeology, processes of identity formations, and representations of slavery and its afterlives. Dr. Flewellen joined Stanford Anthropology in the summer of 2022.