“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”
Research Methods
The Black Pacific Project mobilizes ethnographic, archival, and media-based methodologies to identify, locate, recover, and share what Principal Investigator Caroline Collins calls “interstitial evidence” of long histories of Blackness in the Pacific dispersed across various archival collections.
Dr. Collins is currently conducting project archival research in repositories and communities across California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaiʻi.
She has physically and/or digitally consulted collections including: the Maritime Museum of San Diego; UC Berkeley Bancroft Library; The Huntington Library; Oregon Historical Society and Research Library; Seattle Public Library; Library of Congress; the National Archives; San Francisco Maritime Research Center / National Park Service; African American Museum and Library at Oakland, San Diego History Center; New Bedford Whaling Museum, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid; California Historical Society; Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; Smithsonian National Museum of American History; UCLA Special Collections; Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, Bishop Museum; Hawaiʻi State Archives; the Hawaiʻi Army Museum; the Lyman Museum; Alaska State Museum; Alaska State Archives; Alaska State Library; the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections and Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Image Captions: (TOP) Reference books at the Alaska State Museum and Library, Courtesy Caroline Collins; (ABOVE LEFT) Collins conducting archival research within UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, Courtesy Caroline Collins; (ABOVE RIGHT) Collins researching within the Alaska State Archives, Courtesy Caroline Collins.
Embodied Experience
Visual ethnography and participant observation methods are also central to the Black Pacific Project’s research practice. These methods are grounded in the premise that evidence of Blackness in the Pacific is not limited to the archive. Black folks continue to engage in maritime activity and embodied nautical practices in the Pacific. The Black Pacific Project interrogates the complex cultural work of this ongoing engagement through contact with Black oceanographers, surfers, boat builders, and other Black individuals living, working, and playing upon the Pacific.
Image Captions: (LEFT) Youth surfer in Oahu, Hawaiʻi, Photo by Mas Photography, Courtesy Caroline Collins; (ABOVE) Danielle McHaskell PhD Candidate, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Courtesy Danielle McHaskell.
Community-University Research
The Black Pacific Project fosters partnerships between university researchers and local communities in the co-design of upcoming Black Pacific projects. Since Fall 2022, the project has partnered with the community-based Practicum in New Media and Community Life course in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego to collaborate on upcoming Black Pacific public exhibitions and media projects. Partnering during project planning and design phases allows undergraduate students to apply theories of co-design, youth public engagement, and public pedagogies to a real-life collaborative research project.
Image Credits: (RIGHT) A UC Links youth participant tours the Maritime Museum of San Diego with UC San Diego practicum students as part of Black Pacific youth engagement design work, Courtesy Practicum Course Instructor Dr. Riley Taitingfong, (BOTTOM) Archival boxes at the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, Courtesy Caroline Collins.
