The politics of identity

When Marilyn Thomas-Houston tells a student, “I don’t know the answer but I’ll look into it and get back to you,” she really means it.

Dr. Thomas-Houston, assistant professor of anthropology and African-American studies at the University of Florida, made the promise more than 10 years ago. While talking about the African diaspora – the scattering of African people across the globe – to her students, she mentioned that a significant number of people of African birth, who were brought forcibly to the colonies to provide slave labour, made their way to Nova Scotia following the American Revolution. And that’s when she saw a hand go up at the back of the class.

“Nova Scotia?” queried the student. “Why would they go to Nova Scotia?”

“I don’t know the answer but I’ll look into it and get back to you,” responded Dr. Thomas-Houston.

Event Dalhousie Institute on Society and Culture presents: A Crosscurrents Panel Race Histories Friday, Feb., 22, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Room 2102, McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building Panelists include Jean-Pierre LeGlaunec (History, Killam Post-Doctoral Fellow); Marilyn Thomas-Houston (SOSA, Fullbright Chair in Globalization & Cultural Studies); Issac Saney (College of Continuing Education, Race & Revolution: Reflections on Cuba)

Researching this answer has occupied Dr. Thomas-Houston ever since. The anthropologist has visited Nova Scotia every summer for the past decade, meeting with African Nova Scotians to find out about their lives and to explore the “politics of identity.” She sees intriguing commonalities in the lives of black Nova Scotians and African-Americans in the south: the hats worn by women to church on Sunday mornings, elaborate wedding celebrations and comfort food.

“There are ways of being that seem to be a part of black culture,” muses Dr. Thomas-Houston, ensconced at Dalhousie University for a year as a Fulbright University Research Chair in Globalization and Cultural Studies. “I don’t know, for example, how many times I’ve been asked, ‘What church do you belong to?’”

The South Carolina native and author of two books, “Stony the Road” to Change and Homing Devices, admits she first arrived with stars in her eyes, anticipating that in Nova Scotia she “would see the future for black people in the United States given the difference of years in freedom.” At the time, she entitled her research proposal “Harmonies of Liberty.”

Instead, she discovered a difficult history. Promised free land and rations in exchange for their loyalty by the British, the Black Loyalists found those promises had evaporated once they arrived on Nova Scotia’s rocky coast. In any case, most Black Loyalists couldn’t make a living from farming because the land was unsuitable for growing crops. Those who didn’t have a trade to fall back on were forced to indenture themselves or their children to survive; their lot turned out no better than what they had left behind.

Dr. Thomas-Houston is interested in whether that immigrant experience – and that of the Jamaican Maroons from the 1790s and refugees from the War of 1812 – continues to colour the lives of descendants. She’s also examining more recent migrations of Africans to the Maritimes and whether this further complicates issues of identity and citizenship in Nova Scotian and Canadian society.

“Basically, what I want to know is, ‘What does it mean to be a black citizen of Nova Scotia?’” she says.

As a Fulbright scholar based at Dalhousie, she hopes to set up a Nova Scotia field school, which she envisions as an interdisciplinary, interuniversity centre where students could learn about the socio-cultural history of colonial Nova Scotia and discuss how this history affects the province’s black population today. Moreover, students would be taught qualitative research design, ethnographic methodology and research ethics. They’d also be required to carry out individual research projects and “service learning projects” by volunteering for local community groups.

“I see the field school as an immersion experience in which students might be assigned a family to live with or to live nearby,” says Dr. Thomas-Houston. “I see this as a wonderful, enlightening experience by which students can take their knowledge and make the world a better place.

“That’s not too much to ask, is it?” she says with a laugh.