Whitney Battle-baptiste

Biography

I see myself as a scholar and activist who views the classroom and the university as a space to engage contemporary issues with a sensibility of the past. My academic training is in history and historical archaeology and my research is primarily focused on how the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexuality look through an archaeological lens. My work has included interpreting captive African domestic spaces at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage Plantation, school segregation in 19th century Boston at the Abiel Smith School on Beacon Hill, the Burghardt family homestead, also known as the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington, Mass., and my most recent work on the complexities of navigating a community-based archaeological project at the Millars Plantation site on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera. My first book, Black Feminist Archaeology (Left Coast Press, 2011), outlines the basic tenets of Black feminist thought and research for archaeologists and shows how it can be used to improve contemporary historical archaeology as a whole. I am also serving as the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst.

Research Interest

African American anthropology; history and culture of the US South, captivity in the Americas; African American material and expressive culture; historical archaeology; African Diaspora archaeology; Critical Race Theory; Black Feminist Theory; critical heritage studies; women and gender studies, engaged and community-based archaeology.