Syracuse University's Pathways to Knowledge Lecture Series will continue with a presentation by Mark W. Hauser, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology in The Maxwell School, at 7:30 p.m. March 27 in Grant Auditorium.
Hauser's research involves looking at the extent of the flow of local pottery through the street markets of 18th-century Jamaica in an attempt to understand the scale of the informal economic sector in which enslaved and free African Jamaicans operated. He also plans to determine how that system compared and intersected with other economies in operation during the time period.
To conduct his research, Hauser examined the distribution of locally produced coarse earthenware and created a system of analysis that would be sensitive to variation in the pottery over space and time. So far, Hauser has found that while there were many sites of pottery manufacture in Jamaica, pottery was traded across the island, indicating an island-wide scale of economy in contrast to the localized economies of the planters.
Sponsored by the Department of Science Teaching in The College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School, the Pathways to Knowledge Lecture Series is designed to broaden the academic horizons of undergraduate students by inviting SU Ph.D. candidates to share their research.
