Apples for Audubon and Eggplant for Oya

Afro-Caribbean Diaspora Religious Practice in Sugar Hill, New York City’s Parks and Cemetery

Abstract

Harlem’s historic Sugar Hill neighborhood possesses several public parks and cemeteries used by African and Afro-Caribbean Diaspora communities for religious activities. In my research, I have identified and mapped sites of religious activities and conducted interviews with community members, revealing how practitioners of Santería, Vodou, and Yoruba traditions have adapted to their urban home via the use of public space. The religious traditions explored here require interaction with nature and the physical land. Therefore, I argue that public space serves as critical infrastructure for facilitating the practice of these religious traditions. I build on the views of Erika Svendsen, Lindsay Campbell, and Heather McMillen that practitioners who engage in this use of public space derive a psycho-social-spiritual benefit from those spaces, while simultaneously contributing to the diversity and democracy of these public spaces as Frederick Law Olmsted and others have theorized.