Whispers of Caribbean Isles Launches

In November 2023 the C-C-C funded Project 'Whispers of Caribbean Isles: Inclusive Narratives for pre-Columbian Archaeology Collections' launches. Project Lead Investigator Dr Jimena Lobo Guerrero Arenas plans that the months of November and December will be dedicated to planning and research within the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology collections and around Cambridge.

This project aims to reveal the potential that exists to learn about the Caribbean pre Columbian past through inclusive and multivocal dialogue with present-day Caribbean  communities in Cambridge and abroad. Participants will have the exclusive opportunity to unpack and reconnect to hidden and lost histories stored in the MAA Atlas building. It provides an unprecedented opportunity in Cambridge to engage with the Indigenous pasts in the insular Americas. 

The project has three main objectives: 

1) Recover Indigenous pasts through the study of MAA's Caribbean archaeology  collections by contemporary Caribbean groups. 

2) Foster more inclusive and restorative narratives of memory and identity through  participatory research. 

3) Create a pilot digital platform that allows sustained dialogue with communities  remotely in future participatory projects (that can be implemented by different  museums/collections).

The logo, designed by Research Assistant Oliver Antczak aims to evoke the physical aspect of opening boxes at the MAA collections and revealing aspects of the Caribbean Past. The blue is both a nod to the C-C-C funders and the Caribbean ocean that links the regions Peoples together.