Jeffrey James Burnett

The Oak Bluffs Historic Highlands Archaeology Project (OBHHAP) is a community-based historic landscape study that maps the construction and growth of an early-20th century Black vacationing community in the Vineyard Highlands area of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. The project utilized three primary methods of investigation: geospatial analysis of historic deed records; above-ground archaeological survey; and oral history interviews. Most of the research for the project was conducted over two years, completing in June 2025. Fieldwork was conducted from July to October 2023 and data collection, digitization, and processing were conducted from February 2024 to June 2025. The OBHHAP focuses on the role of space, place, racialization, and collective memory in the construction of community, the production of meaning and historical knowledge, and in shaping landscapes and experiences. It works to map the ways community members in the Vineyard Highlands asserted a sense of belonging and place. The results of the project provide insight into the ways these factors were shaped by Black vacationers’ experiences of racism, struggles against structures of racialized social and economic exclusion, and assertions of a right to leisure. In addition, the project produced a public-facing digital map of historic deed records accessible to community members and researchers.