Shawn-Naphtali Sobers’ Black Everyday Lives, Material Culture and Narrative Tings in de House shares a beautifully innovative homage to ordinary objects like front door/Hallway greeting signs, Television sets, armchairs, and Dutch Pots that may be found in many Black British homes today. By centering these objects in his narrations of Black British life, Sober’s book reflects on how they may act as focal points of concern in interdisciplinary dialogues dedicated to explorations of Black experiences. By doing so, Sobers generatively uses these objects to explore intergenerational ideas surrounding African-Caribbean genealogies and Black Atlantic experiences of migration, while also attending to the historical and contemporary roles these objects pragmatically and symbolically play in everyday lives.

As a Black British individual of Dominican descent, I was greatly impressed by how significantly Sober’s discussions resonated with my experiential renderings of home, alongside the insights I have gained from intergenerational dialogues with Caribbean elders living in London. For example, chapter 3, “the (Living Room)—Television,” opens with a quote from Mr Stuart (a 78-year-old Caribbean-born, London-based elder): “Sitting down to watch Roots was like a window to a world and history we knew was out there, but it was the first time we saw it siding with the Black man” (33). His reverence, consideration, and collaborations with Caribbean elders throughout the book’s evocative dialogues and interviews are an integral aspect of this work. It is in these heartfelt and humble moments spent with Caribbean elders where Sober’s discussions of ordinary objects cut across and intervene in past, present, and future representations of the “Windrush generation” situated experiences.

Being highly reflective of Sober’s interdisciplinary practices as a filmmaker, photographer, writer, and researcher, the book effectively draws on a constellation of social science literature, while also consistently weaving in audio-visual and arts-based resources into its narratives. For example, in chapter 1’s focus on front door/hallway greeting signs, he prompts the reader to “MUSIC SEARCH—No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish Skinny Pelembe PRESS PLAY” (17) in an extended discussion around the types of everyday signs Caribbean migrants came across in property windows in the 1960s, when they were looking for households to make homes out of for their families. Beckoning us to listen to contextually relevant and melodic music throughout the book is an interesting task that Sobers sets up for us as readers. Rather than tangentially guiding the reader away from his reflections, this action complements his discussions and activates his narrations in unique ways that demonstrate a layering of cultural productions. This method of layering visual, textual, and audio productions alongside the narratives of the various things we may have in our homes resonates greatly with Black Studies traditions of bringing together multiple texts and places as a means of learning across multiple sites (Katherine McKittrick, Dear Science and Other Stories [2021]). In extension to this, Sober’s book also features insightful dialogues he’s taken up with different visual arts practitioners such as Wendy Leocque, a photographer who is engaged with in chapter 13, “(Parent’s Bedroom)—Suitcase/Grip (Part 1).” In this chapter, we learn how Wendy Leocque has creatively repurposed a Suitcase/Grip that her grandmother brought home from Jamaica in 1956 by turning it into a pinhole camera. This chapter was particularly thought-provoking, as it demonstrated how the Suitcase/Grip can be an object which maintains a witnessing to historical occasions experienced by Caribbean women and men. An engaging self-portrait image that positions a family photo-wall on the left of Sobers holding up his father’s Suitcase/Grip in front of him is also shared here. Acting as a metaphor for his ancestors guiding his footsteps, this image also features a portrait of Sobers mother to the right holding a bouquet of flowers. This image is indispensable as Sobers explains that due to his mother’s health problems, a large part of this book was written in her home, which is actually the same familial home on which the book is based. Effectively weaving many of his photographs throughout the book, this particular image stood out to me as it endows the book with a fundamental element of site-specificity that encourages the reader to reflect upon their embodied experiences of being in familial homes.

Finally, beyond the nature of its object-focused site-specific evocations and polyvalent photographic features, this book maintains a highly innovative and modular design as his chapters can be read to invite readers into his home, working their way from the front door, into the living room/front room, kitchen, upstairs into the bathroom, followed by his parent’s bedroom, his teenage bedroom and ending poignantly with his garden. This room-by-room and object-by-object chapter structure effectively renders Black everyday lives in generative ways that allow the reader to engage with various snapshots that frame the material cultures of Black Everyday lives.