Port of Call: Archaeologies of Labor and Movement through Ports

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Port of Call: Archaeologies of Labor and Movement through Ports," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Connecting people across oceans, from rural landscapes to urban hubs, and interiors to coasts, ports play critical roles in the development and maintenance of the vestiges of nation and empire. While connections between ports and economic development are lasting and widespread objects of inquiry - the confluence of terrestrial and watery labor is increasingly embraced as worthy of study. Archaeologies of port labor precipitate visibility, both of those moving through ports and those obscured from other historiographies, but by whose hands these spaces were built and operated. This session brings together diverse perspectives on the archaeologies of labor and movement, both at and through ports from terrestrial and maritime archaeological perspectives, emphasizing the multi-scalar human dimensions in sites that are often discussed in predominantly macro-economic terms.