Insiders and Outsiders: Individuals and Community in the Dutch Atlantic World
What does it mean to be an insider or an outsider? In my dissertation, “Insiders and Outsiders: Individuals and Community in the Dutch Atlantic World,” I argue that that racialized ideas about community and belonging in the seventeenth century were closely tied to urban landscapes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. My dissertation moves between two Atlantic cities – Amsterdam, and New Amsterdam, which later became New York. My work traces the development of Black and migrant communities in New Amsterdam and reveals the important relationship between the institution of “half-freedom” (also called conditional freedom) and the environment.
Professional Biography
Amanda Faulkner is a PhD student in history at Columbia University. Amanda earned her BA from the University of Texas at Austin before moving to New York to pursue a PhD at Columbia University. She has spent the years since working and researching between Amsterdam and New York City. Her current work investigates how communities took shape in urban landscapes in the Dutch Atlantic World. Her work has been supported by the Social Sciences Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Fulbright Program, and the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.