Post-industrial Landscapes, Communities, and Heritage

Archaeologists have become adept at understanding urban and industrial sites through a study of material remains. However, such work increasingly takes place in a postindustrial context, where ongoing processes of ruination or decay, social conflict, environmental damage, and economic stagnation are seen as defining features of the physical and social landscape. What types of challenges does this environment pose for archaeologists, and what opportunities does it offer for archaeology to better serve and enrich the public? This session gathers presenters from Urban, Industrial, and Contemporary Archaeologies and Heritage Studies to demonstrate the ways in which understandings of postindustrial remains take archaeologists in new directions, and how archaeologists may play a useful role within contemporary postindustrial communities.