PhD candidate Charlotte Jones invited to speak at Center for Louisiana Studies about research

 

Charlotte Jones, Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology, spoke at the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana - Lafayette on February 6th, 2025, as part of the center's In Your Own Backyard workshop series. The talk, "Decoding the Opelousas and Attakapas Brand Books," touched her dissertation research, including how Acadians and Creoles asserted their identity in late-colonial Louisiana through cattle branding. Jones also showed attendees how they can research their own family's cattle brands through various online and archival resources.
 
The talk also acted as a sequel to a presentation last August when Jones was invited to speak at the Symposium: Acadie-Louisiane, also hosted by the Center for Louisiana Studies. This symposium was one of many events during the 2024 Congres Mondial Acadien (CMA), a gathering of Acadian descendants that takes place every five years. Jones spent a month in Nova Scotia for her fieldwork and subsequently authored an article about her time at the CMA titled, "Keeping Up with the Acadians" and another about the cultural landscape of Acadie for Country Roads Magazine.