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    • Home
    • About
    • Research
      • What I Do
    • Teaching
    • Presentations
    • Contact Me

  • Home
  • About
  • Research
    • What I Do
  • Teaching
  • Presentations
  • Contact Me

Research

My research studies biosocial variation of the slave trade. I use skeletal morphology as a proxy for biological variation, and archival data to assess modes of positioning for enslaved persons. I integrate these data to test spatial correlations within and across enslavement sites.

Areas of Research

Cranial biodistances as estimators of migration history

Positioning enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements

Positioning enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements

Positioning enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements

Positioning enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements

Positioning enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements

Theorizing displacement of Afro-descendant burial grounds

Positioning enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements

Theorizing displacement of Afro-descendant burial grounds

Theorizing displacement of Afro-descendant burial grounds

This study examines skeletal morphology of the remains of enslaved Africans and Afro-descendants to:


1. Understand how certain biological groups formed and changed over time 

2. Explore gene flow and other evolutionary processes that may explain how the biological variation is distributed

3.  Investigate patterns of biological relatedness that may not be reflected in historic migration data. See pilot data here and here.

This study examines the modes of description and essentialization of runaway enslaved persons in fugitive slave advertisements and other archival documents. Using thematic analysis in MAXQDA software themes of description are identified in the data and assessed for variation within and among sampled sites. See pilot data here (recorded version here).

This study proposes a theoretical model that describes the positionality of the skeletal remains and burials of Black decedents. Drawing from the work of Caribbean philosopher, Frantz Fanon, this study adapts his theories of alienation and spatial compartmentalization to construct a theoretical model that describes the initial and repeated encounters that occur between the living and Black decedents that have direct consequences for their placement. 

Current/Forthcoming Publications

Cunningham A.S. (2020). Growth and sexual dimorphism of the hyoid body in Macaca mulatta. International Journal of Primatology, 41(3), 538-557.

In Review. Cunningham A.S. (2022). Postmortem Racialization: Reconceptualizing Frantz Fanon’s Black Subject. Submitted to Transforming Anthropology.

In Prep. Shuler K.A., Cunningham A.S. (2022). African Diasporas: Bioarchaeological Approaches to Intercontinental and Global Legacies of Displacement. 

In Prep. Dwyer I.S., Cunningham A.S., Justinvil D. (2022). Caribbeanist Casualties: Examining the Intersections of Migration and Forensic Identification through Critical Biocultural Approaches to Structural Violence. 

In Prep. Cunningham A.S. (2022). Text analysis of 19th century fugitive slave advertisements in Barbados.

Find out more

Media

The St Helena Sentinel, Volume 11 Issue 10, 9th June 2022

  • A Love Letter to Rupert's Valley, p.12-13
  • Invited contributed piece

The St Helena Independent Newspaper, Volume VXII Issue 26, 2nd June 2022

  •  Andree Cunningham has a Life’s Work Ahead (p.8)

Saint Helena Government Press Release

  •  Scientific Research Being Conducted On St Helena

UF Explore Magazine

  • "The Researcher Within: National Science Foundation Fellowships nurture young scientists."

Current Collaborators

Copyright © 2022 Andreana S. Cunningham - All Rights Reserved.

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