Hi! My name is Jada Shavers and I am a sophomore at Scripps College majoring in Anthropology and Writing.

Your support will bring this research into reality. From the cost of flights, housing, and food any contribution will propel me into this research without any financial constraints.

Thank you and please follow my research journey on my online blog!

I came to this project with the experience of working in the restaurant industry for over two years. Everyday I see and interact with people who share little pieces of their unique lives with me. One day, I was talking with a customer – an older woman who taught me to talk slower rather than louder – and she told me about all the things she’s done with her life. While she elaborated on her studies in college, my arms grew weak from the dirty plates I had cleared from her table. Knowing her words were worth the wait, she looked directly into my eyes, and said “Why are you doing what you are doing? What is the real, hidden reason that you want to study anthropology?” The thought hit me so clearly the plates in my arms teetered and almost hit the floor.

Growing up, I went to a Catholic middle school in Portland, Oregon. I was one of the three black students at the school, but I never noticed it then. All I knew was that my ancestors had done something great. They were legendary in my mind, so during history class I would scour each page looking for the edges of their names. I knew they were heroes, and I waited for the day that everyone else found out. That was fourth grade. By the time my class reached eighth grade, my family’s names and faces were never known. I remember the specific rainy history class when I realized I would never hear their histories in my school textbook. That was the same day I decided to spend the rest of my life sharing the wisdom of every erased story.

“I do this for my family,” I told the sweet lady – my temporary friend – sitting in the restaurant booth. For the sake of my exhausted arms, it was an easier answer, but I promised myself to never forget what its simplicity was rooted in.

The opportunity to work alongside Dr. Nicole Richards would bring my response into reality. As an anthropology student I will be able to contribute in tremendous ways. This research project will document Senegalese young adults’ coming-of-age experiences on Goree Island. Located off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, Goree Island is highly significant to understanding racial justice on a historical and contemporary scale; it was the largest and one of the most enduring slave trading centers in the transatlantic slave trade—responsible for trafficking millions of Africans and resources to Europe and the Americas. The island is now inhabited by nearly 2,000 Senegalese from various ethnic groups and has been transformed into a UNESCO World Heritage Site that draws thousands of visitors to the island for tourism and remembrance. Blending ethnography and oral history, this study will illuminate island inhabitants’ formative years on this ghostly ground—their perceptions of the island's fraught history, their perceptions of its tourists visiting from each corner of the world, but most importantly, their perception of the African diaspora making pilgrimage to this zone. This study seeks to understand the fragmentation and loss wrought by colonialism, the Middle Passage, slavery and the contemporary phenomena of racial capitalism/neocolonialism from the vantage point of Black Africans growing up amid these accumulated histories—indeed, growing up on troubled soil that hosts one of the most powerful symbols of racial injustice and inequity known to the modern world. Yet, in the face of brokenness, it endeavors to locate, if any, connections that Black African inhabitants have to those diasporic persons returning. It endeavors to know how this connection shapes young Black Senegalese sense of identity and belonging to/within a global Black community.

In addition, this research will further support my senior thesis. I hope to investigate Goree Island as a site that intersects commodification and trauma, specifically Pan-African trauma. The opportunity to visit Goree Island would allow my research to be exploratory, as I would get the chance to learn from Goree residents about their experiences. The chance to conduct research alongside Dr. Nicole Richards, will additionally provide significant contributions to my research as she can support me while conducting interviews. By using this research for my senior thesis, I will be able to share my results and experiences with my wider community.

Thank you and please follow my research journey here !