“Better than we” is Ryan Espersen’s PhD thesis that aims to understand the materiality of Saba’s ideological landscape during its pre-emancipation colonial period. This is accomplished by understanding the dialectics, or inseparable relationships, between Saba’s geography, locally situated ideologies of class, race, and gender in Saba’s social environment, and the processes behind these ideological relations that contributed to the material things that are found across Saba’s social landscape. This provides insights into archaeologies of poverty, approaches towards differentiating between low class and slavery in the archaeological record, and the importance of powered perspectives in defining and situating poverty on local and regional scales.

Based on “Better than we”, Dr. Espersen received his degree in 2017. It is now available as a book at Bruna. It comprises 402 pages.