Isolation and Segregation Landscape. Archaeology of quarantine in the Indian Ocean World

ended

The proposed research presents an experimental and completely novel investigation within the historical archaeology, applied to isolated contexts. The main objective of ISLand is to provide a new way of thinking about human interactions within colonial empires and bringing colonial studies into dialogue with medical history and the emerging concept of healthscaping. It seeks to do so by studying quarantine facilities in the Indian Ocean World during the long nineteenth century, a crucial period for the history of European empires in that region and a flashpoint for the conceptualization of modern public health. Quarantine, traditionally viewed as merely a mechanism for the control of disease, will be analyzed as the outward material response to important changes taking place socially, ecologically, and politically at the time. The project is a part of an international, interdisciplinary effort, combining history, archaeology, and anthropology. The researcher will tap numerous archival sources and archaeological data from selected sites, examine them through social and spatial analysis, and systematically analyze a test case in Mauritius through the most innovative methods that target landscape and standing archaeology. The broader impacts of ISLand have relevance for current European approaches to the migration crisis, where the threat of disease has been ignited as a potentially debilitating consequence of immigration from extra-European countries. The training-through-research project at the Stanford University, the top institution where acquiring knowledge and skills in historical archaeology, will allow the applicant to develop into a position of professional maturity with a specific interdisciplinary set of skills. With the support of the host institutions in EU, the researcher will promote historical archaeology in European academy, stimulating new approaches in usual archaeological research and an interdisciplinary approach with cultural anthropology.