Sarah K. Croucher is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and a core faculty member of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Wesleyan University.

Biography

I am a historical archaeologist, whose primary research focus is on the archaeology of 19th century Omani colonialism in East Africa. I have directed fieldwork projects on Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, and have participated in a wide range of archaeological projects in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Bahrain, Ghana, England, Scotland and Ireland.

My Ph.D (University of Manchester, 2006) was the first to explore the archaeology of 19th century clove plantations on Zanzibar, investigating the ways in which the materiality of plantation sites related to the social changes of the islands in the 19th century. It was awarded the Society for Historical Archaeology 2008 Dissertation Prize. I am currently revising this into a monograph, to be titled Capitalism and Cloves. This explores the relationships between material culture and identities during the social upheavals experienced by East African residents during the 19th century. I have continued this East African research with field projects in Western Tanzania, also looking at the impact of the caravan trade and Omani colonialism on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

I am also the co-author (with Dr. Eleanor Casella) of The Alderley Sandhills Project: An Archaeology of Community Life in (Post-) Industrial England, forthcoming with Manchester University Press. Based on interpretations of findings from the Alderley Sandhills Project, this is the first book-length archaeology of a 17th through 20th century household site in Great Britain.

My research draws on social theory within archaeology, particularly the way in which material culture interacts with individual and group identity. I am also interested in theoretical issues within historical archaeology, especially the way in which colonialism and capitalism were created in local contexts, which in turn shaped the global dynamics of these processes.

At Wesleyan, I teach courses on historical archaeology, African and African Diaspora archaeology, and feminist and gender archaeology. From spring 2010 I shall also be teaching lab classes in archaeology based on previously excavated material from downtown Middletown, and from the ‘Beman Triangle’ – the triangle of land between Vine St, Cross St and Knowles Ave. The houses built on this land from the 1840s were home to a community of African Americans living in Middletown, tied to the AME Zion Church. Later the site was occupied by European immigrants to Middltown, as the city industrialized.  I plan to develop teaching and research around excavation and the interpretation of material from this site.