Julia Roberts – författare

In Mixed Company explores taverns as colonial public space and how men and women of diverse backgrounds – Native and newcomer, privileged and labouring, white and non-white – negotiated a place for themselves within them. The stories that emerge unsettle comfortable certainties about who belonged where in colonial society. Colonial taverns were places where labourers enjoyed libations with wealthy Aboriginal traders like Captain Thomas, who also treated a Scotsman to a small bowl of punch; where white soldiers rubbed shoulders with black colonists out to celebrate Emancipation Day; where English ladies and their small children sought refuge for a night. The records of the past tell stories of time spent in mixed company but also of the myriad, unequal ways that colonists found room in taverns and a place in Upper Canadian culture and society. Reconstructed from tavern-keepers' accounts, court records, diaries, travelogues, and letters, In Mixed Company is essential reading for tavern aficionados and anyone interested in the history of gender, race, and culture in Canadian or colonial society.

In Mixed Company explores taverns as colonial public space and how men and women of diverse backgrounds – Native and newcomer, privileged and labouring, white and non-white – negotiated a place for themselves within them. The stories that emerge unsettle comfortable certainties about who belonged where in colonial society. Colonial taverns were places where labourers enjoyed libations with wealthy Aboriginal traders like Captain Thomas, who also treated a Scotsman to a small bowl of punch; where white soldiers rubbed shoulders with black colonists out to celebrate Emancipation Day; where English ladies and their small children sought refuge for a night. The records of the past tell stories of time spent in mixed company but also of the myriad, unequal ways that colonists found room in taverns and a place in Upper Canadian culture and society. Reconstructed from tavern-keepers' accounts, court records, diaries, travelogues, and letters, In Mixed Company is essential reading for tavern aficionados and anyone interested in the history of gender, race, and culture in Canadian or colonial society.

The dynamic processes of knowledge production in archaeology and elsewhere in the humanities and social sciences are increasingly viewed as the collaborative effort of groups, clusters and communities of researchers rather than the isolated work of so-called ‘instrumental’ actors. Shifting focus from the individual scholar to the wider social contexts of her work and the dynamic creative processes she participates in, this volume critically examines the importance of informal networks and conversation in the creation of knowledge about the past. Engaging with theoretical approaches such as the sociology and geographies of knowledge and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and using examples taken from different archaeologies in Europe and North America from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, the book caters to a wide readership, ranging from students of archaeology, anthropology, classics and science studies to the general reader.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.