Archaeologies of Diaspora and Dispersal

Innovative theoretical, methodological, and interpretive approaches to archaeologies of diaspora and dispersal have gained considerable recognition in recent years. This session examines a variety of lived experiences related to forced exile, flight, exclusion and deportation, (re)settlement, globalization and transnationalism, deterritorialization, colonialist and imperialist dislocation, labor and trade motivated migration, and other kinds of movement and dispersal. Discussion will center around a comparison of sites associated with various communities including (but not limited to): African-American, Chinese, Caribbean, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Irish, and Portuguese populations. Participants will address slippages between various kinds of dispersal as a means of broadening our understandings of diasporic events. Further, the session will address shifts in modes of thinking about homogenization, constructions of home, collective memory/consciousness, marginalization, and systems of oppression.