New World Families: Building Identity in Transatlantic Mortuary Contexts

Summary

This paper will explore the impact of colonization on family identity and heritage through the analysis of mortuary material culture in the United Kingdom and the Caribbean from the 17th to 20th centuries. Although colonial families are traditionally represented as static, immobile and passive, a more systematic and dynamic understanding of this period of unprecedented movement and interaction can be accessed through alternative sources of history. Cemeteries provide such an opportunity because they have historically acted as venues through which to establish and promote identity. In considering cemeteries as reflections of both short-term burial events and long-term cultural processes, this research explores the development and negotiation of family identity and history through funerary monuments and inscriptions. The transformation of family self-representation, engagement in society, and connection to place, as embodied in cemeteries, will highlight the changing relationship between tradition, memory and experience during this early period of globalization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Final Cut: Death and Burial Through the Ages   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 509