Amy Potter

My current research is driven by a mission that is embodied through the Tourism RESET (Race, Ethnicity, and Social Equity in Tourism) initiative. Through this research collaborative, I seek to challenge the traditional inequalities of tourism and enhance recovery of marginalized heritages (especially African Americans).

The last several years, I have been part of an NSF-funded research team that has examined representations of enslavement at plantation museums in the U.S. South. The culmination of this research was the book titled Remembering Enslavement: Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum published this March (2022) by the University of Georgia Press. In addition to publishing peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, I have been interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Backstory History Podcast.

In 2021, I transitioned to another collaborative project also funded by the National Science Foundation entitled "The Role of Museums in the Landscape of Minority Representation." My research team will survey how African-American history and culture are presented at African-American history museums in different regions of the United States, then work with each museum's staff to develop public engagement projects. This research has become especially urgent to document how local museums are responding to geographies of racism and racial violence in 2020 as well as how these largely under-funded institutions are navigating the devastating impacts of COVID-19.