Zora Neale Hurston

Welcome to the publication, “Representations.” This is a project designed to bring the perspectives of a wider variety of groups to the forefront of the anthropology classroom. To celebrate Black History Month, we are covering the accomplishments of 28 Black anthropologists across 28 days. Learn more about our project, and read on for the amazing accomplishments of Zora Neale Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston was an African American writer, journalist, playwright, filmmaker, and anthropologist whose witty and irreverent writing style established her position as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Among anthropologists, Zora Neale Hurston is more likely to be a household name today as her work spanned across genres and was heavily influential upon the field of anthropology. Hurston produced such works as “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (1937) which addresses issues of race and gender in the American south, “Tell My Horse” (1938) an ethnographic examination of Voodoo in Haiti, and “Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018). In “Barracoon (2018),” Hurston interviewed Cudjoe Lewis, the last known living person to have been brought from West Africa and enslaved in the United States. While all of her publications were groundbreaking, “Barracoon” offers unique, first-person insights into the lives of those brought to the United States through the Middle Passage in a way that only an anthropologist could produce. Hurston utilizes interviews and embraces local vernacular throughout her work in order to best reflect Cudjoe Lewis’ genuine lived experiences.

Her early 1900s portrayal of racial realities in the American South laid the foundation for a majority of her novels, specifically Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Barracoon. Additionally, she published work about Voodoo, and became one of the first anthropologists to do so. Known and celebrated for these creative literary ventures, her pivotal work as an anthropologist tends to be obscured, despite the significance it played in chronicling African American Voodoo and folklore. Considering the colonial implications of cultural anthropology, her additions to the field of anthropology allowed for a new story to unfold compared to the historically hidden and erased narratives of African Americans.

In the 1920s, Hurston studied anthropology under her mentor Franz Boas as the only African American student at Barnard (receiving her B.A. in 1928.) Following her childhood in mainly all-Black Eatonville, Florida, she was able to follow her own personal and lived experiences through an anthropological lens. The blending of her personal creative writing and scholarly work was encouraged by Franz Boas and her background in anthropology allowed her literary pursuits to flourish.

Zora Neale Hurston began to embark in a series of trips to the Caribbean (Jamaica and Haiti) and U.S. South as a way to document her fieldwork. This research was funded through private funding and fellowships, specifically the Rosenwald and Guggenheim fellowships. Her first anthropological work that truly capitalized on her research and talent in the anthropology field was published in 1935 in Mules and Men. This was a collection of folklore about the Black story as documented through the lens of a Black America. Her second book, Tell My Horse (1938), was a collection of research on Voodoo while her book Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” told the story of Kossula who appears to be the sole living survivor of an ineffable transgression. She met him in 1928. The book documents his suffering yet reveals the light in his resilience. The interesting part is the way that Hurston conducts herself as a writer. Very similar to her anthropological research and published writing, she acts like a sylph-like conductor, by creating an element of style where she could artfully write his narrative but giving the space for Kossula to speak his own story into existence. Moreover, she does this in a way that doesn’t allow her own opinions and beliefs intrude into the story. Like many current anthropologists with hopes of moving away from the colonial lens of anthropology, they hope to write in a non-intrusive style. The thick description of Hurston’s writing style establishes rapport with fellow anthropologists and writers but her deep understanding of cultural relativism and the implications of ethnocentrism ensures that the narratives she portrays are accurate and avoiding outside stereotypes and preconceptions.

Fellow anthropologist Irma McClaurin notes “Hurston’s research was deeply rooted in a Diaspora paradigm, which stressed an examination of the cultural continuities and differences that emerged when Blacks were scattered across the Americas and Europe as a consequence of slavery.” (Finding Zora, 2018) Hurston’s contribution to anthropology was more than her ability to bring to life vivid imagery of Black culture, but in her pioneering efforts toward theorizing the African diaspora.

Bibliography

McClaurin, Irma. “Finding Zora.” Association for Feminist Anthropology, 2018, research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v07n1/zora.htm.

Zora Neale Hurston, 29 Mar. 2018, www.zoranealehurston.com/.

Edited by Travis Du Bry, Los Angeles Southwest College, and Amanda Zunner-Keating, Los Angeles City College District.

Photo from University of Florida News.