Behind the Big House: Reconciling Slavery, Race, and Heritage in the U.S. South (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781609388171)

2022 Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group Nelson Graburn Prize, winner

When residents and tourists visit sites of slavery, whose stories are told? All too often the lives of slaveowners are centered, obscuring the lives of enslaved people. Behind the Big House gives readers a candid, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to interpret the difficult history of slavery in the U.S. South. The book explores Jodi Skipper's eight-year collaboration with the Behind the Big House program, a community-based model used at local historic sites to address slavery in the collective narrative of U.S. history and culture.

In laying out her experiences through an autoethnographic approach, Skipper seeks to help other activist scholars of color negotiate the nuances of place, the academic public sphere, and its ambiguous systems of reward, recognition, and evaluation.


Author: Jodi Skipper
ISBN-10: 1609388178
ISBN-13: 9781609388171
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Language: English
Published: 03/22/2022
Pages: 246
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.98w x 0.71d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2023