Dr Adom Philogene Heron

I am an ethnographer and grandchild of the Caribbean whose work spans: (I) Black and indigenous ecologies, hurricanes survivals & repair; (II) the material and affective afterlives of Bristolian slavery; & (III) Caribbean kinship and fatherhood.

Methodologically, I'm committed to collaborative & experimental ethnographies (incl. digital mapping, archives, visual, sound, Caribbean poetics). My scholarly practice seeks the 'grounding' of live questions – on environmental racial justice, how we remember slavery and Caribbean fatherhood– within public dialogues

From 2019-2023 I led the GCRF Surviving Storms | CCC project,  digitally mapping hurricane survivals and repair in Dominica, Eastern Caribbean.

My work features in Antipode, JRAI, Transforming Anthropology, Sargasso, Suomen Antropologi, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, SAA Archaeological Record, Public Books, numerous edited books and is featured on several multimodal platforms, including: Surviving Society [ first + second ],  Geographies of Risk , Mandem x Barbican + Conversations With Anthropologists.

Recent publications: 

• Plotting Survival [Plurivers]
• Still Standing [Book, Papillotte Press]
• Surviving Maria [Transforming Anthropology]
• In the hurricane’s path [Archaeological Record]
• The ti kai Project. Craft. Collaboration. Care [Sargasso]
• Abyssal Ethnography? [SJTG]
• Goodnight Colston [Antipode]
• Homing Empire [Public Books]
• Blood Speaks [JRAI]
• Becoming Papa [vol. chapter]
• Coming to Terms with Caribbean Families [vol. chapter]

I am part of Bristol Centre for Black Humanities and Diaspora Solidarities Lab Writers (Mellon Foundation) collectives. 

From 2017-2022 I worked as a Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths University of London (UoL).

Prior to that I undertook a short post-doc (during 2017) at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), The School of Advanced, University of London - where I developed the Caribbean Studies Special Collection @ Senate House Library. 

• PhD, Social Anthropology [St Andrews, 2017]
• MRes, Social Anthropology [St Andrews, 2012]
• BA, Social Anthropology and Development Studies [Sussex, 2010]

PhD Students 

• Rambisayi Marufu - Intimate Geographies: Weaving Threads of Diasporic Intimacy In Black Women's Spaces of Hair Care in London (CHASE funded - external, Goldsmiths University)

• Alice Clough - Telling Different Stories. Exploring and interrogating acts of interpretation in commercial archaeology settings (funded by AHRC Collaborative PhD program - Museum of London and Univeristy of Bristol) 

I welcome PhD students with interests in Caribbean and Afro Diasporic worlds; as well as those with thematic interests in Black ecologies, kinship, slavery's afterlives, or multimodal / collaborative methods. 

To learn more about applying - click here.