Unit information: A Planetary Caribbean: Land. Sea. Sky. Plantation. Plot in 2023/24

Unit name	A Planetary Caribbean: Land. Sea. Sky. Plantation. Plot
Unit code	ARCH30053
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Adom Philogene Heron
Open unit status	Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)	None
Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)	None
Units you may not take alongside this one	None
School/department	Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Unit Information

Why is this unit important?

The Caribbean is a planetary archipelago, a crossroads of modernity where diverse worlds meet. Widely (mis)recognised through tropes of sun, hedonism and relaxation, its history as an inaugural site of capitalist expropriation, ecological destruction and freedom struggle calls for deeper engagement with its lives, lands and waterways.

This unit charts a multimodal ethnographic path through a modern region birthed in catastrophe (indigenous genocide, transatlantic trafficking, and colonial exploitation) and follows the beautiful experiments the region’s peoples undertake - how they make life, attempt to get free and thrive in the face of all this - ever in relation to land, sea, sky, and each other.

A Planetary Caribbean invites you reflect on our current planetary crisis in relation to those who have survived and continue to demand liveable futures in the face of catastrophes past and present. The unit also encourages you to explore your connections to these entangled histories and presents - which span the Black Atlantic and Bristol’s intimate ties to the Antilles.

How does this unit fit into your programme of study

Contributing to our 4-field anthropology dept. this multimodal and transdisciplinary course contributes a Caribbean oriented set of debates (on human environments, survivals, racial exploitation, and freedoms) to a diverse program of study concerned with what it means to be human.

This unit compliments existing 3rdyear units besides which it sits: with its visual and sonic ethnographic dimensions (Visions: Experiments in Creative Anthropology), a concern with the present-past (Museums and Heritage: Critical Perspectives) and its interest in human adaptations (Human Challenges).

Your learning on this unit

Overview of content

This course charts an ethnographic journey through a modern region birthed of racial capitalism and environmental destruction. It charts the beautiful experiments the region’s people undertake to make life, get free and thrive in this place; their connections to land, sea, sky and each other. And it invites you, to unpick the entangled connections of Bristol to the Antilles and Atlantic world; as well as reflect on our current ecological and social conjuncture in relation to the worlds of Caribbean peoples forging futures within and beyond the region.

How will students, personally, be different because of the unit?

Students who take the unit should gain:

• a grounded awareness of oneself as a planetary citizen - who inhabits geographies intimately connected (via tradewinds, commodities, expropriated wealth, ancestors, place names, spectral presences, oceans, and seas) to the Caribbean and the catastrophes that have unfolded there. A methodology for thinking ourselves as human beings in living in an interconnected world more generally.

• an anthropological understanding of the power of human creativity and ‘resilience’ – how people adapt to new lives in a new world (Indigenous impacts of European conquest; African kidnap and transatlantic transplantation; responding to seismic, volcanic and meteorological disasters) and make art from catastrophe.

• a nuanced sense of the enduring impacts of coloniality, racial capitalism and enslavement on the region, its peoples and diaspora; and how our city (Bristol) is deeply implicated in all of this.

• a grasp of contemporary currents in conversations on climate justice, environmental racism and calls for post-slavery reparations. Connecting theory with contemporary real-world practice

Learning Outcomes

A successful student on this unit will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a nuanced and critical reading of the Caribbean’s place in modern Atlantic history – from indigenous life to the plantation to the present.
2. Engage critically with a range of key texts including but not limited to those focusing on Caribbean environments, histories and cultural creativity.
3. Carefully apply and critically assess a range of theoretical approaches for elucidating (visual, sonic, textual, and poetic) ethnographic materials.
4. Develop an ethnographic practice that reads the social world in both local and planetary terms: as locally particular and interconnected by meteorology, capital, ecology, migration, and empire.
5. Cultivate an ethics of care that reflexively questions one’s position in the world, ever relation people, place, and material and discursive power relations in which we are situated.

How you will learn

Weekly 3 hr interactive lectures, including discussion and engagement with texts, film, photography and sound/music

Formative preparatory small (pre class) assignments (e.g. written reflection) and in-class exercises (e.g. group activities, short presentations) will iteratively support students to prepare for the summative assessments

How you will be assessed

Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):

See ‘how you will learn’

Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):

Photo Essay, 1000 words (25%) [ILOs 1,4,5]

Digital story map or experimental scrapbook, 2500 words + video/art/sound/images (75%) [ILOS 1-5]

When assessment does not go to plan

When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. ARCH30053).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.