A Digital Ethnography of the Inhabitants and Environment along Florida's Silver River
FAIN: FEL-268212-20
Amanda Concha-Holmes
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)
Preparation of a digital ethnography of the
Silver River in Florida.
Key to interpreting who belongs and which part of a hybrid identity is allowed to belong is Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept borderlands. This concept which helps identify and navigate multiple worlds of geographic and cultural identity formation guides this interactive, web-based, mixed-media monograph. Additionally, I rely on evocative ethnography, a decolonial, feminist visual anthropology approach that I have pioneered to reveal some of the multifaceted historical, crosscultural and multispecies layers of Florida’s Silver River. This born-digital project, which allows for the integration of video, text, hyperlinks, audio and graphics, is better equipped to negotiate the representations of some of the layers of identity formation that are fragmented, hybrid and emergent. These stories and the evocative ways they are represented are critical for excavating and interpreting Florida and American history that highlight the contributions of the under-represented.
Associated Products
Evocative Ethnographies of Florida’s Silver River: Biodiversity, Boundaries, Life Experiences (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Evocative Ethnographies of Florida’s Silver River: Biodiversity, Boundaries, Life Experiences
Author: Concha-Holmes, Amanda
Author: Shriver-Rice, Meryl
Abstract: Water: a reflection, a surface, a substance, and a movement. A boundary that eludes, precludes and shapes form and life itself. A vessel that shapes its surroundings and where vessels float, feed, and folly. This live panel shares multimedia poetic experiments in conducting an ethnography with a river, specifically with the Silver River in North Central Florida where Asian monkeys, mastodons, Black Seminoles, self-identified rednecks in motorboats, Northern conservationists in kayaks, tourists in glass bottom boats, Tarzan movies, fungi, Paradise Park (the Blacks only beach during segregation), manatees and alligators (from prehistoric times), migratory birds, algae, and conceptions of humaNature relationships collide as fragmented facets of the Silver River's identity.
Meryl Shriver-Rice’s masters of Environment, Culture and Media program’s course called Nature, the Anthropocene and Visual Anthropology (University of Miami) is the milieu for this artistic-scholastic engagement with representations of lifeworlds, culturally specific experiences, and the policies that shape and are shaped by these meshworks. Students are guided by Amanda Concha-Holmes’ pioneering work with Evocative Ethnography to integrate videos, texts, soundscapes, images, graphics, sensorial experiences, and poetry to interpret some of the layers of cultural and ecological history through a decolonial, feminist theoretical and methodological lens that examines the Silver River’s entangled prehistorical, historical, and contemporary entanglements of environmental concepts, conservation policies, diverse peoples, animals and plants, climate changes, multispecies perspectives, and the meaning for being, belonging and becoming in Florida, and the world.
This 90-minute panel will feature multimedia presentations accompanied by the artivists who made them for a discussion on decolonization, embodied transformation, healing, and learning.
Date Range: 12-14 March 2021
Location: Zoom Anthropology of Consciousness meeting
Evocative Ethnography and the Silver River (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Evocative Ethnography and the Silver River
Author: Concha-Holmes, Amanda
Abstract: Students are guided by Amanda Concha-Holmes’ pioneering work with Evocative Ethnography to integrate videos, texts, soundscapes, images, graphics, sensorial experiences, and poetry to interpret some of the layers of cultural and ecological history through a decolonial, feminist theoretical and methodological lens that examines the Silver River’s entangled prehistorical, historical, and contemporary entanglements of environmental concepts, conservation policies, diverse peoples, animals and plants, climate changes, multispecies perspectives, and the meaning for being, belonging and becoming in Florida, and the world.
Year: 2021
Audience: Graduate
Blacks in Florida: Decolonizing Representation (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Blacks in Florida: Decolonizing Representation
Author: Concha-Holmes
Abstract: Florida has a deep connection to Black history that is often left at the margins of historical representations or ignored completely. As Marvin Dunn notes in his book A History of Florida Through Black Eyes, “people of African descent have been major players in almost every significant event in the history of Florida from the arrival of the conquistadors to the launch of the space shuttle…[and yet] [g]enerations of African Americans in Florida [and most other Americans] have been denied our history. That is an intellectual crime.” (x-xii). If colonial thought represents those Americans worth representing as white, European and male, then decolonizing representations means that the representations not only include people of color and women but include them in ways that highlight their achievements and not only their oppression; it also means that the classroom and learning experiences go beyond the written word.
In order to decolonize representations, students must uncover underrepresented histories and learn the tools to represent otherwise. The course will cover some of the stories of African descendants in Florida including creating the first independent towns in the United States, Black Seminoles and other freedom fighters, racial terrorism during and beyond reconstruction, Black joy and celebration at Paradise Park, Black leaders in music, civil rights, medicine, business and politics.
This course is meant to offer the insights and the skills into interpreting representations of Blacks in Florida through learning the methods of archival research, interviewing, analysis, digital production, and public exhibition with a feminist, decolonial lens. The course is divided into three modules: 1. Black histories, 2. Research on Black experiences and expressions of the present, and 3. Creating museum exhibits and K-12 classroom curricula for Black futures.
Year: 2021
Audience: Undergraduate