Memory in Community-Based Archaeology

Recent applications of community-based archaeology have engaged with various stakeholders from descendants to local members of the community, all with varying investment in the archaeological practice. The papers presented in this session focus on community-based archaeology as a theory and methodology that adds to the analysis of collective memory. Specifically viewing archaeology as craft (Gonzalez-Ruibal 2013), the papers explore how archaeology as both metaphor and practice allow for the excavation of memory through an engagement with materiality, temporality, and lieux de memoire (Nora 1989). Exploring the complex relationship of intersectionality to memory work (Mills and Walker 2008), presenters seek to engage the way community-based archaeology entangles with various processes of meaning making, commemoration, preservation, and education at archaeological sites. Using an interdisciplinary approach, presenters will tie in ethnographic archaeologies, oral history, archival research, and "dirt archaeology" to explore the relationship between memory and the archaeological praxis.