Joan Vincent papers selections
We are excited to announce that the papers of Joan E. Vincent (1928-2018), former Professor of Anthropology at Barnard, are now open for research. The collection includes extensive research notes from Vincent’s fieldwork in Uganda and Northern Ireland during the 1960s-90s, where she conducted anthropological and archival research on the historical impacts of British colonial rule on the economic and societal structures of Bantu and Teso peoples in Uganda and the Northern Irish County of Fermanagh. In the 1980s and 90s, Vincent also studied the impacts of AIDS on the people of the Rakai and Soroti Districts of Uganda. In addition to Vincent’s research, the collection includes materials related to her teaching at Barnard as well as personal photographs, scrapbooks, and postcards from her childhood and travels.
The collection was processed in Fall 2024 by graduate students in the Advanced Archival Description course at New York University: Tess Derby, Katelyn Landry, Sabrina Moore, Emily Teller, and Mercedes Rodrigues Lima. Led by Martha Tenney, Director of the Barnard Archives, the course focused on how to ethically describe the contents of archival collections, the history of how those collections came into existence, and the ways in which archivists’ choices and biases impact researchers’ access and understanding of archives.
Read the collection guide and email archives@barnard.edu to set up an appointment or to teach with this collection.