Dr Charlotte Hammond

(she/her)

Publication

• Date
• Type
• Promoted

Research

Material Mawonaj: Haitian Women Workers, Secondhand Clothing Cultures and Creative Mobilities in the Caribbean

My current research, funded by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, examines second-hand clothing economies and textile and garment industries in Haiti and the United States. It is an ethnographic study of how women garment workers, secondhand clothing traders and dressmakers resist and reconfigure global markets through their local organisation and entrepreneurial strategies. I am currently writing my second monograph under contract with Bloomsbury, titled Material Mawonaj: Haitian Women Workers, Secondhand Clothing Cultures and Creative Mobilities in the Caribbean.

Entangled Otherness: Cross-gender Fabrications in the Francophone Caribbean

My first book, Entangled Otherness: Cross-gender Fabrications in the Francophone Caribbean, was published with Liverpool University Press in 2018. It was shortlisted for the prestigious R. Gapper Book Prize for the 'Best Book in French Studies published in 2018'. This book was based on interdisciplinary doctoral research, fully funded by the AHRC, which examined expressions of cross-dressing and gender performativity in contemporary Francophone Caribbean visual and performative cultures, focusing on the islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Haiti and their diasporic communities in France. My blog has more information on this research project. 

Teaching

I have designed and led several culture modules as part of Cardiff's Modern Languages programmes. These courses are rooted in my interdisciplinary research and incorporate inclusive dialogue and creative assessment.

Of Oceans and Islands: Ecology and Environment in Francophone Arts and Literature

This module explores the intersections of French colonial history and the ongoing ecological impacts of colonialism in the francophone world. The environmental challenges and vulnerabilities of France’s former island colonies are all too evident: from the environmental effects of French nuclear testing in the Pacific to the increased cycles of Caribbean hurricanes. France’s long history of dehumanisation and colonisation of people worldwide is intimately linked to environmental injustices in these contexts. Engaging ecocriticism, feminist and decolonial thought, the aim of this module is to examine the ways that authors and artists have explored intersecting racial, gender and environmental inequalities as legacies of coloniality. Students study a range of media, including fiction, poetry, graphic novels, visual arts, film and music, and consider in what ways these works can build decolonial ecologies. How do these texts challenge and suggest ecoregional alternatives to the human and environmental impacts of the Anthropocene, the Plantation/ocene and ongoing occupations/dispossessions of land? This module gives students the opportunity to compare media with an environmental focus from a range of periods with attention to their cultural and historical contexts. Students are introduced to key ecocritical and postcolonial conceptual and theoretical strategies for undertaking analysis of the media in question, and to address new and urgent questions about the past and present in francophone regions.

Global Narratives of Colonialism, Slavery, and their Legacies

This module is designed to introduce students to the comparative study of the transatlantic slave trade, servitude, colonialism, antislavery and abolitionism. Building on students’ knowledge from their studies in year one and two, the module critically examines connections across the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds from Africa to the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia, as we discuss to what extent slavery and its consequences have shaped and continue to shape these regions. The module goes beyond national and local historical narratives, to examine the transnational legacies of slavery and colonialism through an exploration of their impacts, principally in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Brazil, Germany and Japan. We examine the historical context with an emphasis on the nineteenth century, as well as addressing postcolonial legacies (of race, gender, and identity), and the memory and memorialisation of slavery and colonialism, primarily through archival documents, literature, visual and material culture. 

Undergraduate modules

Global Narratives of Colonialism, Slavery, and their Legacies (co-convenor with Jenny Nelson)

Of Oceans and Islands: Ecology and Environment in Francophone Arts and Literature (co-convenor with Christie Margrave)

French Cultures in Context - 'Identity' (module convenor)

National and Global Perspectives on France

Final year French dissertation (module convenor)

Postgraduate modules

MA Global Cultures//Global Heritage dissertation (module convenor)

MA Theorizing Global Cultures - Postcolonial Theory

MA Research Methods and Practice

Biography

I joined Cardiff School of Modern Languages in 2014 after completing my PhD in the departments of Drama and French at Royal Holloway, University of London. During my PhD I spent a year conducting research and teaching at l’Université des Antilles et de la Guyane in Martinique. Whilst in the Caribbean I was a participating artist at the 2011 Ghetto Biennale, held in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I have an MA in Theatre Design and in 2013 worked as a visiting lecturer at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama teaching Postcolonial Theatre. Prior to my doctoral studies, I have worked in the areas of costume design and video editing.

Committees and reviewing

Secretary of the Haiti Support Group 

Reviewer, Palgrave Macmillan, Edinburgh University Press.

Supervisions

I welcome applications from PhD students interested in the areas of:

• Francophone Caribbean literature, film and art.
• Slavery and its legacies
• Textiles and dress
• Modern forms of slavery in garment supply chains
• Fashion and environmental justice

Current supervision

Yi Han Xu

Past projects

Madeleine Phillips, 'From Linguistic Maronaz to Official Language: the Recognition and Officialization of the Creole Language through Public Education in La Réunion between 1970 and 2022' (thesis passed with minor corrections, Nov 2023)