Paulla Ebron

Making Tropical Africa in the Georgia Sea Islands

Dr. Ebron utilizes extensive ethnographic field work and archival research to explore how the Gullah-Geechee region of the southeastern United States came into being—and continues to shape Black culture. During this process, she considers three kinds of region making: cultural representations, which contribute to a sense of collective “memory”; landscape reformations through the plantation economy; and political mobilizations for literacy and civil rights. Her book project, tentatively entitled Making Tropical Africa in the Georgia Sea Islands, moves across varied forms of evidence, including ethnography, texts, and images, to show both the semiotic and material emergence of this region, known for its imagined tropicality and African culture.