UC Berkeley Assistant Professor William White has received a CESU grant for an ethnographic overview and assessment of three National Park Service units on Saint Croix, one of the three U.S. Virgin Islands (U.S.V.I.). Members of the UC Berkeley Anthropology Department will partner with the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA) to conduct an ethnographic overview and assessment of the Christiansted National Historic Site, Buck Island Reef National Monument, and Salt River Bay National Historical Park on St. Croix, U.S.V.I. Through interviews with community members from “Traditionally Associated People,” site visits, and documents in repositories, the project aims to help the National Park Service gain an understanding of how Traditionally Associated People use these units, collect ethnographic information about the role of these units in local lifeways, and identify ethnographic resources eligible for inclusion in the Cultural Resources Inventory System (CRIS) and the National Register of Historic Places (NHPA). Drawing upon the extensive archival research and community connections that have already been collected, the results of this project will be used by the NPS to help resource stewardship, interpret resources, and provide useful information about these park units to the Traditionally Associated People.
Lead scholars for this project are anthropological archaeologists of African descent who have been working with community partners on St. Croix for several years. The SBA was created in 2011 to increase diversity in archaeology, conduct community-oriented projects that help collect, communicate, and to help correct the histories of African diasporic people. For over a decade, the SBA has facilitated an oral history project documenting the careers of African American archaeologists, and has long used ethnographic materials in its research. This is particularly salient on St. Croix, which has a large black population that has been largely excluded from this sort of research. The project’s lead scholars are all African American and led by anthropological archaeologists, experienced with integrating ethnographic survey methods with archival and archaeological data. Along with Dr. William White, associate professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley and a founding member of the SBA, Dr. Ayana Flenwellen, a co-founder of the SBA and assistant professor of anthropology at Stanford University will serve as a co-principal investigator for this project.