The Colony and the City: Contemporary Caribbean Landscapes in Transatlantic Context

Summary

Following Raymond Williams’ critical analysis of the relationship between the English countryside and its urban counterpart in The Country and the City (1973), this paper expands Williams’ analysis to incorporate the entanglements of the colony, specifically the Caribbean post-colony of Barbados, and English urban centers. Despite studies of well-known historical relationships existing in terms of Atlantic world economics, there has been less discussion of the repercussions of deindustrialization and decolonization in the Caribbean nation. However, tensions associated with nation building since independence and the crippling decline of the sugar industry are simultaneously anchored to historical processes that literally built the urban landscapes of England. Through an analysis of decaying landscapes of sugar production, this paper seeks to consider the tethering of the colony and urban metropole in the recent past to address simultaneous processes of development and ruination.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016   •
• Historical and Contemporary Archaeologies of the City: Opportunities and Challenges

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 239