Beyond “Black Rice”: Reconstructing Material and Cultural Contexts for Early Plantation Agriculture

Edelson, S. Max

doi:10.1086/ahr.115.1.125

Cited by 22 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The ensuing American Historical Review forum brought the controversy into the open by soliciting commentaries from three distinguished historians, followed by a rejoinder from EMR. The first commentary, by Max Edelson (2010:129), cautioned scholars to avoid deploying “unforgiving statistics against a process of inferred cultural transmission that could, because the documentary record omits African perspectives, leave only the faintest impressions in the archives”. Walter Hawthorne (2010a) called for recognition of both African and European contributions to colonial risiculture, while Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (2010:148) admonished scholars to use historical databases “wisely and judiciously” and remain mindful of their limitations.…”

Section: The Question Of Black Ricementioning

confidence: 99%

Amplifying the Archive: Methodological Plurality and Geographies of the Black Atlantic

Watkins

Carney

2022

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First published in 2001, Judith Carney’s Black Rice drew on a complex methodology to argue that enslaved Africans, despite the brutal oppression of bondage, made fundamental intellectual and cultural contributions to agricultural landscapes and economies in the Americas. This thesis sparked a spirited debate in the Anglophone academy, especially among historians, some of whom took issue with the book’s inclusive geographical methodology. That discussion provides a point of departure to show how plural geographical methods work to amplify the archive, historical and otherwise, and enhance our knowledge with more complex and inclusive narratives. After summarising the debate touched off by Black Rice, we update its thesis with inter‐ and multi‐disciplinary research findings over the past two decades. We then survey theoretical and methodological developments in subsequent geographies of the Black Atlantic, before exploring new pathways and connections made possible when we amplify the archive beyond colonial and other written texts.

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Section: The Question Of Black Ricementioning

confidence: 99%