A highlight of my time as an IAS Fellow at Durham University was the Absence/Prescence of Durham’s Black History walking tour, co-organized by IAS co-Director and Anthropology Professor Nayanika Mookherjee. Prior to the walking tour, I had visited the Cathedral twice, once on a tour with Cathedral staff organized by IAS, and once by myself, during which time I lingered in the exhibit on the Magna Carta.
It is impactful to see an original early version of the Magna Carta, and to read the interpretation about the ways in which it established principles of equality under the law. However, I kept thinking that, when it was painstakingly penned in 1216, my ancestors, and the ancestors of the Indigenous peoples with which I collaborate, were not included in the definition of a person deserving of representation. In fact, we wouldn’t be included for another several centuries. While I felt the urge to mirror the celebratory tone of the exhibits regarding the forward-thinking nature of the Magna Carta and its link to contemporary understandings of human rights, I felt a sinking feeling of being left out. And, the fact that those omissions were not being discussed—then or now—made that exclusion cut even more deeply.
The third time I visited the cathedral was for the Absence/Presence walking tour. As the leaders of the project and the various hosts, including university administrators and cathedral leadership, introduced themselves and the import of the project, I felt the energy of being part of something new—a more inclusive understanding of the history of the cathedral and of Durham. We loaded the digital tour onto our individual smartphones and began to move silently through the space, beginning in a cluster, and then slowly dispersing as we navigated the tour at our own paces. Some of us lingered at certain stops, like Bede’s tomb, or the Miners’ Memorial, or the lists of the Prince Bishops, as we listened carefully to histories that had not been included in the displays or the official tours. As I learned about the Prince Bishop’s ties to slaveholding plantations in the Caribbean, I felt the tension both expand and release—expand regarding the intensity of the exploitation and violence my ancestors endured for generations to build the unpaid wealth that formed the foundation of these grand cathedrals—and release in its acknowledgement. I felt a sense of a right to be here—my ancestors built these walls with their labor. I felt a need to honor them, to do my best work in recognition of their sacrifices, and to always make sure their histories are included.
At home, I work in Native American Studies, and one of my projects has been collaborating with Patwin community member Pam Gonzales to create a new course, Homeland History, that focuses on the Indigenous histories (and links to the present) in the area where the university is located. Pam shared with us her outrage that her people—the local, Indigenous people—were not visible at the university placed within their homeland. Not visible in curriculum, not visible in signage; not visible anywhere. She made me keenly aware of attempted erasure in the place where I live and work, where I focus on Indigenous rights and land and water stewardship and return. While thousands of miles away, being here in Durham helped me to gain a new perspective on that work to build a Homeland History curriculum and to grow awareness of Patwin history and presence and painful engagement with settler society over time. I recognized, as a Black person with family from the Caribbean, the ways in which our labor under oppressive systems of British colonialism, slavery, and extraction of our homelands (in Africa and the Caribbean), built prestigious institutions and cathedrals that still don’t acknowledge or recognize that sacrifice. Being in the heart of empire taught me about the importance of recognition of impact and working with those most impacted to address those harms.
My time in Durham also involved thoughtful discussions with my hosts in the Anthropology Department, Profs. Gillian Bentley and Paolo Fortis. Paolo and Gillian are leading a courageous initiative to begin a Special Interest Group in Indigenous and Decolonial Studies. In dialogues with them and with a mutual colleague, David Stirrup, who leads a Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies at York, we thought critically about why it is important to have a focus on these areas from Britian. We agreed on the importance of representation of submerged histories and scholars, of bearing witness to the impacts of British colonialism on Indigenous, African, Southeast Asian, and other populations around the globe, and elevating scholarship that centers epistemologies from these locations.
I leave Durham feeling enriched by the engagement with scholars here, hopeful in the movements to expand representation and tell accurate histories here at Durham and further south at Cambridge, and moved by the experience of recognizing my ancestors as present in the formation of empire itself.
/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/research-/research-institutes/institute-of-advanced-study/43486-hero.jpg)