Blog
Blog
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia.
Glossary of Gbe Terms
Please explore some of the key Gbe words that our research group was able to decipher. For a full translation of the Dutch Creole...
Contributors
Casey Gallagher is a 2024 UC Santa Barbara graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies and a minor degree in Comparative Literature....
Epilogue: The Future of Endangerment
by Lisa H. Sideris To be threatened is to be at risk of endangerment; to be endangered means to be at risk of extinction....
The Butterfly Effect
Butterfly metamorphosis, symbolic across many cultures of self-creation and radical change, inspires experiments in performance art and collective transformation of extractivist society.
Symbolic Appropriations
California dreams of high-energy, far-flung mobility converge and collide with the sacred symbolism of a placemaking butterfly.
Good Fences and Good Neighbors in Smoky Hollow, U.S.A.
A major oil refinery in Southern California discovers an endangered butterfly and a PR campaign is launched.
The Making of An Urban Butterfly
A rapidly expanding airfield came to play a defining role in the survival prospects of the El Segundo blue butterfly.
What Does It Mean to Be Protected?
Habitats that appear insignificant and uninviting to the human eye often provide a safe haven for small, invertebrate creatures at risk of extinction.
What is a Habitat?
Endangered species have strong preferences too for the places they make their homes, and for some, those requirements are nonnegotiable.
Who Counts as Endangered?
Recognizing species at risk is complicated by human biases, perceptions, and preferences.
red list
Scholars with interests in endangered species conservation and the environmental impacts of extractivism reflect on how a species comes to be considered for special...
Epilogue: Explorations in Householding
by Naveeda Khan and Sojung Kim By this time if you have read a few of the essays that fall under the term “household,”...
Householding at the Magh Mela
This brief reflection addresses the question "Is the household self-contained?" It does so by considering what might be thought of as a limit case—an...
Saunsaar: Householding in the Shadow of Land Dispossession
What is it to household under circumstances of hunger and impending displacement? By foregrounding the lives of villagers affected by an unfolding multibillion-dollar land...
Displaced Rituals
This piece traces the work of ritual in everyday life through an ethnography of Jesa—Korean ancestral rites—among North Korean migrant women living in South...
Continuity amid Rupture: Reverberations of Jeju 4.3 (Sasam) in the Household
How do survivors of a state atrocity recall its traces? In the drawings and stories of Wan-soon Ko, a Jeju islander who lived through...
Zarina and the Zenana
Vines and lizards clamber over the white washed walls of a courtyard home in the Indian city of Aligarh, where the artist Zarina was...
Agungi (Fireplace), Firewood, Deities, and Householding
This essay explores the changing meanings of the traditional Korean fireplace (agungi)—from an ordinary yet sacred place overseen by household deities in the 1950s...
householding
Anthropologists of India and South Korea, with interests ranging from state violence to pilgrimage, examine how their interlocuters come together to “household” in times...
Epilogue: Critical Conjecture and the Archive
We hope that learning about Damma’s Gbe words has opened up a new window for you into a period of human history that continues...
adga tome
A team of historians, linguists, and curators examines the term “adga tome,” used by one African woman named Damma in a 1739 petition to...
The Gbe Language Cluster
The Gbe language cluster, spoken across West Africa, consists of multiple lects with varying mutual intelligibility. Despite linguistic differences, historical and contemporary evidence suggests...
Creole Linguistics and Virgin Islands Dutch Creole
Virgin Islands Dutch Creole emerged in the late seventeenth century, following the colonization and settlement of the Danish West Indies.
The Moravian Brethren and the Mission to St. Thomas
The Moravian mission to St. Thomas—sparked by an Afro-Caribbean man’s plea and sustained by the faith of Black converts like Damma and Rebecca—became a...
The Danish West Indies during Damma’s Life
Damma’s life unfolded within the violent, multicultural world of the Danish West Indies, where sugar plantations, racial hierarchies, rebellion, and creole kinship shaped a...
Mingo: Damma’s Son, Moravian Leader, and Scribe
Domingo Gesoe, known as Mingo—Damma’s son—was a literate preacher, scribe, and Moravian leader whose extraordinary life bridged enslavement and influence, West Africa and Europe,...
Damma’s Life: From Adga Tome to St. Thomas
Born in West Africa and later enslaved in St. Thomas, Damma—also known as Marotta and Madlena—navigated captivity, faith, and freedom to become a Moravian...
What is Race?
Damma’s letter exposes how the concept of “race” was reshaped across languages and empires, revealing her critique of white Christian supremacy and her call...
What is God?
Damma’s letter reveals how the West African deity Mawu—also called Mau, Bruku, and vodu—traveled with her across the Atlantic, embodying both continuity and adaptation...
What is Nation?
Damma’s shifting use of the terms “Popo” and “adga tome” in her letter to the Queen of Denmark reveals how African diasporic identities—and the...
The Mystery of Damma’s Letter
Damma’s decision to write in her native West African language was unprecedented and it offers a unique opportunity to imagine how the adoption of...