about

I am a researcher-storyteller studying the politics of chocolate and Cape Verdean language and music.

My regional interests include Africa, especially Cape Verde and formerly Portuguese Africa, the African Diaspora, North America, and South Asia. My theoretical interests center on the study of language and music, Creole studies, race, gender and sexuality, popular culture and media, the politics of representation, anthropological ethics, education, digital humanities, and applied scholarship.

A Massachusetts native, I am a doctoral candidate in Harvard University's Department of African and African American Studies in the discipline of social anthropology, with a secondary field in ethnomusicology. During the 2011-2012 academic year, I am in residence as a Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, as I complete my dissertation, "Sounding Creole: The Politics of Cape Verdean Language, Music, and Diaspora." Other projects this year include ethnographic and archival research on the ethics of chocolate, blogging on my chocolate research website Bittersweet Notes, teaching a course entitled "Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food" as part of the Harvard Graduate Student Council's January Term Mini-Course program, developing web content for my academic-social engagement initiative on Cape Verdean Studies (funana.org), and serving as the Departmental Teaching Fellow for African and African American Studies.

For several years, I have worked with Cape Verdean communities in Africa, Europe, and the United States on a variety of ethnographic and archival research and applied anthropology projects. My writing and translation work has been published in The Root, Transition Magazine, Sodade Magazine, and The Savannah Review (forthcoming). I have taught extensively in African and African American Studies, social anthropology, and ethnomusicology, and have received numerous awards in recognition of excellence in teaching. I received an A.M. in Anthropology in 2007 and an A.B. in Anthropology in 2003, both from Harvard University.

affiliations

• W. E. B. Dubois Institute for African and African American Research
• Harvard University Department of African and African American Studies
• Harvard University Department of Anthropology

contact

My e-mail address is cdmartin at post dot harvard dot edu.