Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The rise of Latin American archaeologies had an undeniable colonial dimension intrinsically tied to the global, imperialist and racist nature of contemporaneous scientific practice. The white “founding fathers” that arrived in the region exoticized and commodified its past, and local elites appropriated indigenous sites and symbols to reinforce their own social standing and political agendas. Contemporary approaches drawing from postcolonial and decolonizing perspectives have begun to disentangle the complicated narratives derived from past practices, and to challenge the problematic research designs and their implications for heritage management. The papers in this session tackle these and other problems, and offer new perspectives on their ongoing investigations in our home countries and across Latin America. Our goal is to further the research agendas of Latin American scholars, and facilitate a space that fosters dialogue and collaboration among us beyond the remaining colonial dimensions of archaeology in our home countries.

Other Keywords
Latin America • bioarchaeology • Technology • Ethnicity • Collections • Race • Museum Collections • Museums • Satellite Remote Sensing • Peru

Geographic Keywords
La Libertad (State / Territory) • Puno (State / Territory) • Republic of Peru (Country) • Bolivar (State / Territory) • Loja (State / Territory) • Canar (State / Territory) • Guayas (State / Territory) • Piura (State / Territory) • Tungurahua (State / Territory) • Pastaza (State / Territory)

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  • Documents (6)
Documents
  • Don’t Call Them Fakes: Museums, Markets, And Authenticity In Peruvian Antiquities Collections (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Fernanda Boza Cuadros.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. European ethnographic museums are riddled with Peruvian archaeological objects, many of them looted, gathered, commercialized and transported to Europe along with other plundered commodities. Among these collections, however, are plenty of artifacts of recent manufacture currently...

  • Foreign Archaeology As An Extractive Practice (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Francesca Fernandini.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The praxis of archaeology performed by foreign projects in developing countries such as Peru presents a clear extractive nature: data is extracted as raw material and exported to funding institutions almost always located in the global north. This data is then analyzed and...

  • "I’m not Black, I’m Dominican": Diaspora and bioarchaeology from a descendant’s perspective (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aja M. Lans.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Growing up, my father taught me to say, “I’m not Black, I’m Dominican.” But I eventually realized I am indeed also Black. I do not speak Spanish, and my Latinx heritage is recognizable only in certain spaces. I noticed the conflation of racial constructs and ethnic backgrounds...

  • Landscapes of Inequality: the Issue with High-End Digital and Computational Methodologies in the Study of Colonial Latin America’s Past (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela Oré Menéndez.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In this presentation, I reflect on the disparities in Latin America’s archaeological application and adaptation of digital and computational technologies. Archaeological practice in Latin America exists in constant cooperation between local and foreign agents—usually from the...

  • Latin American Archaeology Collections in European Museums in Decolonial Times (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jimena Lobo Guerrero Arenas.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. A good number of museums in Europe house Latin American archaeological collections. The majority of objects that make them up were acquired by 19th and 20th European expeditions in various contexts of looting, commercial transactions, donations, gifts and more recently even...

  • Peru´s Cultural Heritage Management, Structural Discrimination, and Communities´ Relationship with Their Past. (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Grace E. Alexandrino Ocana.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies and Latin American Voices: Dialogues Transcending Colonizing Archaeologies", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In this presentation, I explain how western-centered ideologies of discrimination are articulated in legal approaches to cultural heritage across the history of Peru. Moreover, I illuminate how this structural problem has been transferred to the cultural heritage management...