Black Atlantic Worlds: Landscape Histories of the African Diaspora

Landscapes are key to the Black Atlantic. The history of how Africans and their descendants populated and transformed nations, regions, and ecosystems has always been attentive to the multiple meanings embedded in the landscapes of the Atlantic rim. More recently, the study of archival silences, Black geographies, fugitivity, and the connections between environment and identity has refreshed traditional conversations and formulated new perspectives of analysis, a shift that acts as the focus of Black Atlantic Worlds: Landscape Histories of the African Diaspora.

Based on the Dumbarton Oaks 2023 symposium on Black Atlantic landscapes, this volume features the work of scholars from distinct disciplines addressing West African Atlantization processes on both land and water, struggles over voice and agency in landscape representation, Black geographies as a conduit for religion and spirituality, and the unexpected and connective diasporic meanings of urban landscapes. By engaging and building upon the ever-evolving paradigms of Afro-diasporic studies, these contributions illuminate the hidden figures, strategies, and ideas that constitute the Black Atlantic.