Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson was an invited participant in the Third Coast Central America Collaborative at Texas Christian University from October 17-18, where she presented “The Flowers’ Story: Emerging Racial Categories and their Socio-ecological context on the British Coast of Central America in the late 1700s.”

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson presented “Lucy’s Story: The Surprising Tale of an Enslaved Black Woman in British Central America in the 1770s” as the inaugural webinar for the Government of Belize’s Institute of Social and Cultural Research-National Institute of Culture and History Research Lab Series 2.0 on July 24. It was well attended and is posted on the ISCR-NICH YouTube channel, available here.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson has just published “Lucy’s Story: The Surprising Tale of an Enslaved Black Woman in British Central America in the 1770s” in Anthropology Now. The article can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed (panel organizer) and Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson (panel chair), along with two SCOPE undergraduate students, Rose Reed ’25 and Kalista Esquivel ’26, presented their panel “Unsilencing the Past: How Oral Histories Give Voice to Black and Latinx Students at Southwestern University” on April 18 at the Southwestern Social Science Association Conference in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Johnson discussed the foundational history of the University and the founding of The SU Racial History Project. Dr. Reed discussed the liberatory potential of oral histories and why this particular method is key to unsilencing the voices of the oppressed at a predominantly white institution. Rose presented the oral history of Lynette Philips, a Black woman who attended Southwestern University between 1980-1984, played basketball for the university, and was very active on campus. Kalista presented the oral history of Eva Mendiola, a Mexican-American woman who attended Southwestern University from 1972-1975 and founded the volleyball team, which was the first women’s sports team on campus. Future plans include submitting these student papers to a special issue of an oral history journal. The conference program can be viewed here.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson presented the paper “The Crawford Family Line: Subaltern Socio-Ecological Formations on the British Coast of Central America in the 1700s” at the Political Ecology Society/Society for Applied Anthropology 84th Annual Meeting on March 27 in Santa Fe, NM.