Public Discourses on the Silence of Inherited Trauma

This will be an investigation into contemporary discourses around enslavement, particularly with a focuson the silence that surrounds the topic of slavery in the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, a formerBritish colony in the Caribbean. I aim to investigate what the positive and negative aspects of thesediscourses could potentially mean for the Black Caribbean community, and for a social policy ofreparations and post-enslavement wellbeing. Karen Fog- Olwig (2007) points to a 'conscious forgetting' ofthis highly emotive historical period among the descendants of formerly enslaved peoples in theCaribbean. This 'forgetting' is manifested in an apparent silence on discussions of slavery among Antiguan's andBarbudan's. Despite this, physical evidence of the period of enslavement is clearly observable on manyCaribbean islands, not least in Antigua. This work follows a similar vein as proffered by Gueye and Michelin their compilation of 'Collective', 'Public' and 'Official' memories of slavery, which was the culminationof several conferences and debates on the subject. Their work focuses on 'the recognition or the denial ofthe memory of slavery in (Africa, Europe and The Americas) ... as a tragedy which has been silenced forover a century in many modern states' despite its contribution to the shaping of 'the course of history inthe past three hundred years' (Gueye & Michel, 2018; 18).I aim to examine this subject further through an ethnography of the Antiguan based TOSTEM'Emancipation Stories' Museum Project, as they attempt to broach the sensitive and difficult task ofsubverting the silence in Antigua and Barbuda and the UK.This research will see me engaging in a multi-sited ethnography of the TOSTEM organisation as they implement their Museum Project in Antigua andBarbuda and in the UK. Using a range of methodological approaches I will focus upon how the project isreceived by the Antiguan and Barbudan community, and amongst Caribbean descendants in the UK.This research could engender an invaluable step towards reconciling the violent history of slavery withthe transgenerational impacts that are faced by descendants today. The public commencement of thistype of dialogue could also prove impactful in furthering the case of reparations for the descendants offormer slaves. Further, it could generate future avenues of investigation in related areas such asacknowledgement and reclamation of a fuller picture of the history of Caribbean people prior to theirenslavement. This is a sorely unrepresented area that is absent from the Caribbean and UK educationsystems: it is screaming for attention in its silencing's. TOSTEM's vision is for a 'society that supports thepreservation of our African heritage and the memory of our African Ancestors... to preserve the history ofthe enslaved and their descendants in Antigua and Barbuda from the 17th century through Emancipationto successive generations, and to create ongoing consciousness of our African Heritage' (Edith Oladele,TOSTEM Coordinator, 2017). This research is also particularly timely as TOSTEM's initiatives are an idealmoment in Antiguan history to investigate and disseminate the unique insights that await.