Mark Hauser

Assistant Professor

1812 Hinman Avenue, Room 101

(847) 467-1648

mark-hauser@northwestern.edu

TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS Empires, Historical Archaeology, Slavery, Contraband and Piracy, Colonialism, Critical Approaches to Race, Archaeology of Inequality, Geographic Information Systems, Material Analysis, Caribbean, African Diaspora, Archaeology of West Africa.

Mark W. Hauser is an Anthropological Archaeologist who specializes in the material culture of the African Diaspora and social inequality and identity in the Caribbean. His work pays special attention to understanding the everyday life and material world of enslaved laborers.

His first book entitled An Archaeology of Black Markets: Local Ceramics and Economies in Eighteenth-century Jamaica explores these issues by focusing on Yabbas, a kind of pottery made by people of African descent in Jamaica, to draw out how solidarities were built and maintained in the everyday by enslaved Jamaicans in the eighteenth century. An Archaeology of Black Markets demonstrates that by lending rigorous attention to the intensity of social relations and the densities of material connections, we can construct an analysis of political control that is not only sensitive to issues of sovereignty, but also to the ways in which individuals mediated colonial regimes including slavery.

Hauser’s current project looks at the impact of small-scale economies across the Caribbean to explore links between enslaved peoples on different islands. This research asks the following question: how important were political boundaries in shaping the economic interaction of enslaved and freed people of African descent in the colonial Caribbean? Funding for this project has come from several sources including, MURR and a PCR (Projet Collectif de Recherche) by the Guadeloupe DRAC (Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles du Centre) in collaboration with Kenneth G. Kelly (University of South Carolina).

He is currently excavating at the site of Bois Cotlette, in southern Dominica- a plantation established by French settlers and enslaved laborers from Martinique at least fifteen years before the island’s official colonization by the British in 1763. Survey and excavations have already highlighted the various ways in which these settlers and enslaved laborers made a living, circumvented authority, and participated in contraband trade. Current goals for research include mapping changes in land use, documenting variation in the organization of slave society, and determining the economic networks of settlers and enslaved laborers working on the estate. This research speaks to the ways in which the the British and French Empires incorporated new subjects, managed social diversity and created economic and political boundaries with in and between colonial holdings.

Hauser has published numerous scholarly articles and chapters on the archaeology of informal and unexpected economies; methodological considerations for understanding colonial landscapes and identity formation; and the centering of craft industries in Caribbean political economy. He co-edited a special issue of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on issues of scale in Caribbean archaeology.

COURSES

214 - Culture Origins

490 - Topics in Anthropology: Mapping People, Place,

and Space

390 - Topics in Anthropology: Artifacts and Texts

390 - Topics in Anthropology: Archaeology of Slavery

BOOKS AND EDITED VOLUMES

2008 An Archaeology of Black Markets: Local Ceramics and Local Economies in Eighteenth-century Jamaica. University Press of Florida, Ripley Bullen Series in Caribbean Archaeology

SELECTED BOOK CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES

2009 "Looking for Linstead Market before Linstead: Eighteenth-Century Yabbas and the Internal Market System of Jamaica" in Caribbean Quarterly 55 (1).

2009 “A Sea of Diversity: Historical Archaeology in the Caribbean” International Handbook of Historical Archaeology. pp. 583-612. T. Majewski, D. Gaimster (eds.). Springer: New York. (with Douglas V. Armstrong)

2008 “Colonialism and Landscape: Power, Materiality and Scales of Analysis in Caribbean Historical Archaeology.” In Envisioning Landscape Archaeology. pp. 251-276. Dan Hicks, Graham Fairclough and Laura McAtackney (ed.). London: Left Coast Press (One World Archaeology): London. (with Dan Hicks).

2007 “Transactions to Freedom Expressed in Maps, Matricals and Material Remains: Archaeological GIS of Late 18th century St. John, Danish West Indies” In Archaeology and Geoinfomatics: Case Studies from the Caribbean. pp. 99-126. Basil Ried (ed.). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. (With Douglas V. Armstrong, David Knight and Stephan Lenik).

2007 “Between Rural and Urban: The Archaeology of Slavery and Informal Markets in Eighteenth Century Jamaica”. Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and African Diaspora. pp. 292- 310 Ed. By Akin Ogundiron and Toyin Falola. Bloomington, University of Indiana Press.

2006 “Hawking Your Wares: Determining the Scale of Economy through the Distribution of Local Coarse Earthenware in Eighteenth Century Jamaica”, African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social Issues in the African Diaspora, pp. 160-175; J. Haviser & K.C. MacDonald (eds.), London: UCL Press.

2004 “An East Indian Laborer’s Household in 19th Century Jamaica: A Case for Spatial, Chronological, and Material Analysis in Determining Ethnicity.” Historical Archaeology 38, 2: 9-21 (with Doug Armstrong).

2003 “Low fired earthenwares in the African Diaspora: problems and prospects.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 7, 1: 67-98. (with Christopher R. DeCorse).