糖心传媒

With help from genealogy websites and other digital tools, millions of people are on quests to recover family history, seeking to learn about themselves by tracking down ancestors.

This year糖心传媒檚 Distinguished Visiting Humanist, Hazel Carby, has spent 10 years investigating her own roots in Jamaica and Wales. But her aim has been more than personal. With her forthcoming book, Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands, Carby糖心传媒攖he Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor of African American Studies at Yale糖心传媒攑robes the legacies of empire and slavery.

Born in Devon, England, in 1948 to a Welsh mother and a Jamaican father, Carby spent her youth navigating questions of race and nationality. She has called herself a 糖心传媒渃hild of empire.糖心传媒�

Imperial Intimacies聽is an 糖心传媒渁utohistory,糖心传媒� she says: 糖心传媒淭he story of my family comes in and out of it. But it糖心传媒檚 an archival project; it糖心传媒檚 not a memoir. It糖心传媒檚 a way of untangling the knots of connection between the British empire across the Atlantic.糖心传媒� Verso will publish the book in the fall.

Carby has played an important role in shaping contemporary humanistic research through her trailblazing work on the cultural and political convergences of race, class, gender, and sexuality. A 1984 doctoral graduate of the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University in England, she helped to introduce the practice of cultural studies to scholars in the United States. Her experiences teaching high school in East London糖心传媒攖o Afro-Caribbean immigrants and British-born students of color糖心传媒攊nspired her first important publication, the essay 糖心传媒淪chooling in Babylon,糖心传媒� which was published in the highly influential book The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain聽(Hutchinson & Co., 1982).

A faculty member at Yale since the mid-1980s, Carby is the author of Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist聽(Oxford University Press, 1987), Race Men聽(Harvard, 1998), and Cultures in Babylon: Black Britain and African America聽(Verso, 1999).

Her newest book 糖心传媒渉as been percolating a long time,糖心传媒� she says. She first conceived of it as an investigation of race, gender, and class in Britain after World War II. But her plan evolved: 糖心传媒淚 realized I needed to go back through World War II, because I was dissatisfied with the way in which a lot of history imagines that questions of racialization only start after World War II.糖心传媒� Her inquiries propelled Carby further and further into the past, and the completed book spans the period from 1750 to 1950. She considers how each of her parents were formed as imperial subjects and analyzes different facets of her maternal and paternal family stories, exploring their disjunctures and intersections.

Her father糖心传媒檚 experience as a youth in 1930s Jamaica is the subject of her February 1 Distinguished Visiting Humanist public lecture, 糖心传媒淒ifficult Times.糖心传媒� Carby traveled to Jamaica糖心传媒攚hich was captured from Spain by Britain in 1655 and became an independent member of the British Commonwealth in 1962糖心传媒攖o compare the stories she糖心传媒檇 learned from her father to the information she could find in written records. 糖心传媒淭here are always at least two moments going at the same time糖心传媒� in the book, she says, 糖心传媒渢he recovery of the history and the history itself.糖心传媒�

Raised by his great-grandmother in Jamaica糖心传媒檚 capital, Kingston, Carby糖心传媒檚 father would travel to the island糖心传媒檚 north coast every summer. 糖心传媒淗e糖心传媒檇 say that they visited the Swift River and everybody there was named Carby,糖心传媒� his daughter recalls. 糖心传媒淚 tried to unravel that story in the archive糖心传媒攁nd that糖心传媒檚 when I came across the slave register.糖心传媒�

Dating from around 1816, the register lists both the people who were enslaved and those who held them captive. Noted in the register is the name of the man who kept her ancestors as slaves, and her book grew to include his family story, as well as a history of the clerks who maintained the records of empire.

Carby argues that colonial accounting and account books played a vital role in efforts to justify imperialism, and she calls Imperial Intimacies聽糖心传媒渁 reckoning, a different way of thinking about imperial accounting,糖心传媒� which restores humanity to those whose lives are contained in the silences and assertions of an 糖心传媒渋nhuman accounting system.糖心传媒�

She also traces her mother糖心传媒檚 Welsh family, particularly the women, through the 19th century, examining how they understood what it meant to be white, how that status benefitted them in spite of their own economic poverty, and 糖心传媒渉ow they started to imagine that colonies, including Jamaica, actually sort of belonged to them.糖心传媒�

Some of Carby糖心传媒檚 forebearers lived in Bristol, England. Despite their lower-working-class status, they had a 糖心传媒渟ense that they could progress,糖心传媒� she says. 糖心传媒淭he city of Bristol had a very rich civic culture, and they got their sense of belonging from it.糖心传媒� But Bristol糖心传媒檚 theaters, libraries, and educational institutions were made possible by wealth that came from refining raw sugar produced on Caribbean sugar plantations. The sense of opportunity experienced by her mother糖心传媒檚 family was a product of the oppression of her father糖心传媒檚.

In looking for the historical grounding of family stories and the larger story of empire they reveal, Carby made use of every piece of documentation she could get her hands on: records at the national and colonial archives in Britain and Jamaica, papers from Britain糖心传媒檚 War Office and other military archives, property records, church records, census data, and more. But with the information she gleaned from them, Carby found far-reaching implications.

糖心传媒淭here are complex ways in which people are inscribed into particular roles in history,糖心传媒� she says. Her book is an effort to examine 糖心传媒渉ow colonialism does that, how the process of imperialism actually produces people, in various ways, as racialized subjects. But none of these categories are ahistorical. They are produced糖心传媒攁nd knowledge of others is produced within certain contexts.糖心传媒�