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“Poor White” Recollections and Artifact Reuse in Barbados: Considerations for Archaeologies of Poverty

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Abstract

Archaeologists regularly confront the material realities of economic inequality. This article contributes to a growing body of literature on the archaeology of poverty but challenges archaeologists to consider how such approaches are politically weighted and directly come to bear on how communities experience economic hardship in the present. Additionally, through a case study of a “poor white” tenantry in Barbados, this article suggests that material culture from sites associated with people of limited economic means necessitates alternative interpretive methods that combine archaeological, historical, and oral sources.

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Acknowledgments

A very special thank you goes to the members of the Below Cliff community who opened their homes to me and provided invaluable insights into their own lives and the lives of their ancestors. Funding for this project was provided by the Fulbright IIE. Thank you to those students and volunteers who assisted in excavations and to Doug Armstrong and Jerome Handler for their support and advice throughout the project. Thank you to Doug Armstrong, Shannon Novak, Lars Rodseth, Steve Brighton, and Theresa Singleton for suggestions throughout the writing process. Many thanks also go to John Cherry for providing insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Finally, thank you to my reviewers, Paul Shackel and Fred Smith, who provided supportive comments and constructive criticism which improved the manuscript. Any and all shortcomings remain my own.

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  1. Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University, 60 George St., Providence, RI, 02912, USA

    Matthew C. Reilly

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  1. Matthew C. Reilly
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Reilly, M.C. “Poor White” Recollections and Artifact Reuse in Barbados: Considerations for Archaeologies of Poverty. Int J Histor Archaeol 20, 318–340 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-016-0339-4

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