Alejandro de la Fuente

Preliminary abstract: This workshop seeks to strengthen the new field of Afro-Latin American archaeology by providing a forum for specialists working on the roles, material lives, and lived experiences of peoples of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Archaeology has given us unparalleled views into the unwritten history of the daily lives of enslaved and free African Americans in the United States. Afro-Latin American archaeologists need the benefits of a community: support, encouragement, mentorship, strength through combined efforts, and value from placing one’s efforts within a larger context. The workshop falls squarely within the central mission of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard, which is the first research institution in the United States devoted to the history and culture of peoples of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean. The founding of the ALARI reflects the coming of age of a new, multidisciplinary academic field centered on the histories, cultures, and experiences of people of African descent in Latin America. The field has developed in tandem with a variety of racially defined social, cultural and political movements that, taking advantage of democratization processes since the 1980s, have transformed how Latin Americans think about their region, culture and history.