While thinking about specializing in anthropology in a certain region, I came across the site of Sidney, Mintz
http://www.marcelloworld.org/caribbeanpage.html, a prominent scholar of historical anthropology. His research focuses on the Caribean and he writes about it:

" The Caribbean region, which is made up mostly of islands and forms a sort of archipelago between North and South America, is a small region when viewed worldwise, with a tiny portion of its population. Yet it was early one of the most ethnically diverse segments of the globe, exposed to an excruciating modernity that rested on genocide, slavery, large-scale acculturation, early and forced industrialization, and then, revolution. Most of that past has been obscured in recent decades by emigration, tourism and drugs. But it's a past that has never wholly died or disappeared."