In Their Own Words: Dr Shawn-Naphtali Sobers

Dr Shawn-Naphtali Sobers grew up in Bath, and got into film and photography at a young age, fascinated by people’s personal narratives, hidden histories and untold stories.

As a researcher, Sobers’ work has spanned a wide-range of topics including community media, creative education, Trans-Atlantic slave trade, disability & walking, and Rastafari culture.

The UWE Bristol professor and academic’s first book Black Everyday Lives, Material Culture and Narrative: Tings in de House takes a deep dive into the seemingly mundane objects in the homes of Caribbean communities in Bristol and Bath.

A deeply personal study,  the book traces the histories and stories behind these objects, room by room, object by object – as a portal through which to examine the intricacies and nuances of African heritage people living in Britain in the modern era.

“I’m a big believer in interviewing the people closest to us while we’ve got the opportunity.”
“Black Everyday Narratives is my first full book. It’s been evolving for a long time. My MA was in anthropology. But anthropology has got a lot of problems related to it, particularly with how anthropologists go off to these far-off lands and study other people. And I’ve always been interested in everyday life and how stories were actually on your own doorstep, in your own spaces.

“I’m always interested in how we take things for granted. Not only objects, but we have people around us all of the time: our parents, grandparents, that know stuff, but we never ask them about it, we never interview them. I’m a big believer in interviewing these people while we’ve got the opportunity. We shouldn’t only have to look at stuff in history books, and documentaries. We’ve got stories around us and in our own families.”

https://twitter.com/shawnsobers/status/1647179369922674688

“I’m very interested in everyday life, and the fascination between things that look very ordinary and mundane”
“I’m also interested in how we’re inheriting things from the Windrush generation. Do we know what we’re inheriting? Those objects that surround us all the time. They might have been in our living rooms for as long as we can remember, but what do we actually know about the object, where did it come from?”

“I look at history, music, film, television, and arts, and how they’re evoking some of these objects.”
“One of the objects I looked at in my book was the Dutch pot, a particular cooking pot that became very synonymous with Caribbean cooking, and Jamaican cooking in particular. There’s lots of Caribbean restaurants called the Dutch Pot, for example. But where did its name come from? There is this whole fascinating story of how it did originate in Dutch, but actually an English person called Abraham Darby then patented the Dutch technique of the Dutch pot.

“It was then sold in transportation areas when transatlantic slavery was happening. And then on the plantations in the Caribbean, enslaved Africans themselves started to get expertise, and actually manufacture them, and make them their own. So it has kept the name Dutch pot, but the expertise of them actually came from enslaved Africans.”

Sober’s book hopes to record the everyday lives of second and first generation Windrush generations – photo: Thomas Katan

“Another chapter looks at rice and how it became a staple in West Caribbean cooking. I started looking at how rice is a mainstay food for many populations around the world, particularly because it’s a cheap crop. But then I then looked at reggae lyrics and how they talk about rice and peas as a mode of pride.

“Another thing that I looked at is the sewing machine. I remember growing up, lots of my parents’ friends had sewing machines displayed very proudly in their living rooms and front rooms. I interviewed my mom and some other elders in the community about why the sewing machine was seen as such a significant object.”

“Some of the stories start off with my own personal reflections, and then they go into this deep dive.”
“In the last chapter of my book, I share a memory of how, when I was in college, one of my fellow students didn’t know what rice was, and he must have been about 17 years old, and that was my favourite food. Growing up in our family, we used to pick rice, picking out each individual grain, and getting out any stones. So I used to do that on a Saturday morning or Sunday morning, whereas my friend didn’t even know what rice was. So, I start with little memories like that and then get a deeper historical picture.

“I was at an exhibition in Bournemouth recently related to the book, and it had this tray of rice there. And someone I know, who has Jamaican heritage, and I’m from Barbados, saw the tray of rice, and said she forgot about it. So all these things we take for granted, come to the surface and you realise you do have these commonalities. You’d find them in white working class homes as well, like the radiogram, which was a massive record player, that was like a piece of furniture with a built in record deck and a drinks cabinet underneath. It was one of those objects of pride that you would save up for, and it showed the house was upwardly mobile.”

“Very soon, younger generations aren’t going to know any of these stories, or they’ll just be these little fragments of folktales.”
“We’ve got 70s and 80s retro museums, but we are still living in these museums, and they’re called our parents rooms. Whenever I spoke to anyone about the project, their eyes would light up, and they would have some story attached to it. Often I approached people not having a clue if they would have anything to say about these things, but they just became very enthusiastic.”

“There’s been lots of initiatives over the last 20 years around slavery, but nothing permanent, so you always go back to square one again” – photo credit: Ben Birchall

“The book has a personal relevance as well.”
“My mom passed away a month ago, and I wrote a lot of the book during the time of looking after her. So even though I was meant to be writing the book before them, I was writing most of it in 2021 and 2022 when I was there. So it took on a deeper meaning in relation to these connections that will soon be lost, when that generation goes.

“I grew up in the city of Bath. It was a very predominantly white city. There was a Caribbean community there, but it wasn’t as visible as somewhere like Bristol. But we did have a very connected upbringing with our Caribbean roots, so I felt fairly connected with my culture, even though I lived in a place where the only other black person in my year group at school was my cousin. So I had a dual upbringing, one very embedded within my Caribbean community, but also one where I had best friends who are white. So I do feel equipped to navigate these different spaces without feeling alienated, even though I have had challenges of racism.”

“I wanted to use the book to talk about things that don’t usually get talked about.”
“In a chapter about the bathroom cabinet, one of the objects in there is sickle cell medication. Sickle cell is a disease which predominantly affects people of African descent. So it’s an opportunity to dive into a world you wouldn’t usually get that access to. It’s a real privilege for people to share their stories and experiences with me. Some experiences are really difficult and challenging.”

“I do think that Bristol does need some kind of museum education space that is sustained so we can learn about this history and its legacy.”
“The reason why I think the Edward Colston statue came down is because there was just a vacuum in Bristol. There’s been lots of initiatives over the last 20 years around slavery, but nothing permanent, so you always go back to square one again, which is why people think nothing’s been done. There’s just no permanent memorial or anything like that. So a complacency crept in, and then the statue came down.

“So I do feel like the story of Bristol is significant enough, and has its own unique history, so a museum education space should be dedicated to that history. People come to Bristol to learn this history, so I think it’s really time for that to be officially honoured.”

“Black Everyday Lives has been written to be more accessible than normal academic books.””
“I want it to be picked up by the general reader, not just academia. I feel I have a responsibility, because I’ve been talking with people and working with communities. So I’m very hopeful that not only academics will engage with it.

“My parting words would be to urge people to look at their own spaces, look at what they’ve inherited, or even the things that they’ve acquired themselves. Ask questions or interview your parents or grandparents. Just be inquisitive, because we don’t always have the luxury of hindsight when it comes to these things, so ask questions while we have the opportunity.”

‘Black Everyday Lives, Material Culture and Narrative: Tings in de House‘ is available to buy on Amazon.

Main photo: Family Ties Network

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• ‘This shameful injustice to the Windrush generation has deep roots’

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