Andrew Sluyter is professor of geography at Louisiana State University. His research concerns understanding racialized places and landscapes in order to contribute to decolonization, a more equitable and inclusive society, and more sustainable and just relationships with nature. Two decades ago, he authored Colonialism and Landscape: Postcolonial Theory and Applications (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), the seminal book on settler colonialism in his field. Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500–1900 (Yale University Press, 2012) followed a decade later, revealing the long-silenced voices of people of African origin who were fundamental to the establishment of cattle ranching throughout the Americas.
His most recent book, the prize-winning Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity since the Eighteenth Century (LSU Press, 2015), addresses how Hispanics have long played central roles in creating New Orleans and its remarkable sense of place. Honors include the J. B. Jackson Book Prize from the American Association of Geographers, the Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, and a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. He has served as the executive director of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers and as editor in chief for the Americas of the Journal of Historical Geography. Sluyter earned his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin.
His project, “Slavery and Higher Education: New Narratives on the Plantation Past, New Places for Racial Equity,” will help colleges built on former slave plantations to understand that aspect of campus place identity in relation to higher education’s racial inequities.
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