Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
Ongoing experiences with severe weather events, global environmental change, war, and epidemic disease demonstrate that impacts of disasters are rarely distributed equitably. Marginalized communities tend to be the most vulnerable and may have limited capacities to recover. Similarly, cultural heritage, tangible and intangible, is subject to damage and destruction during disasters and disaster response. But is everyone’s heritage at equal risk, and who defines what heritage is? This forum explores intersections of disaster and equity in archaeology. What have we learned about relationships among inequality, vulnerability, and resilience in past societies? How have disasters, and responses to them, affected social inequality? Under the rapid pace of modern disaster response and recovery, whose heritage is preserved and whose is sacrificed? Whose voices are considered during disaster planning when it comes to the protection of archaeological sites, collections, and cultural landscapes? And finally, what lessons from past disasters would improve the equity of disaster preparedness and recovery today? Although these issues and interests have global significance in archaeology, they have particular salience in New Orleans and the Gulf South, where disasters, preparedness, recovery, and aftermath have been recurrent and will continue to affect future generations.
Other Keywords
Geoarchaeology •
Cultural Resources and Heritage Management •
Water Management and Irrigation •
Climate Change •
Applied Archaeology •
Bronze Age •
Andes: Late Intermediate •
Maya: Classic •
Coastal and Island Archaeology •
Environment and Climate
Geographic Keywords
Republic of El Salvador (Country) •
Belize (Country) •
Republic of Panama (Country) •
Netherlands Antilles (Country) •
Aruba (Country) •
North America (Continent) •
Mesoamerica •
United States of America (Country) •
United Mexican States (Country) •
Delaware (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)
- Documents (6)
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Archaeology in the Unfolding Aftermath: Creative Mitigation of Anthropogenic Disasters in New Orleans and the Mississippi River Delta (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Louisiana has been called a state of disaster. The flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 drew national attention to the effects of social inequalities, unpreparedness, and key vulnerabilities. Five years later, a catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig produced the largest...
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Disasters in Temporal Context: Linking the Past and the Present—The RVCC Puerto Rico Hub (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The IPCC 6th Assessment Report (2023) highlights that human-induced climate change triggers widespread and rapid changes that disproportionately affect communities in socially produced conditions of vulnerability to disasters. Academic convergence is needed as we search for solutions. Archaeology stresses that past...
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Dismantling Inequities of Disaster: A Speculative Archaeology Approach (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When severe weather events strike, disaster ensues, leaving a catastrophic and at times an apocalyptic wake. This wake ripples through populations differently, generally preying on those already on the margins prior to the event and amplifying the structural inequities, whether they are economic, social, political, or...
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Four Thousand Years of Disaster, Vulnerability, and Resilience in the Lower Yellow River, China (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the past 4,000 years, humans have assaulted the environments of the lower Yellow River Valley. For millennia this region has been an entirely cultivated and (mis)managed anthropogenic landscape. Indeed, the lower Yellow River is called the “river of sorrow” and flows through a land of famine. At the same time, though,...
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Past Water Futures: Rehabilitating Ancient Dams for Present Use (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Water is essential for life on earth. In the twenty-first century, water scarcity is increasingly seen as the main threat to human world economies. This is especially true of the Peruvian Central Andean highlands where lack of water is understood by experts as the single most threatened natural resource in the face of...
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Social Responses to Volcanic Eruptions: Comparative Studies in Central America and Japan (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Volcanic eruptions are hazardous events that affect past cultural and historical trajectories. However, despite several catastrophic eruptions having been recorded, some populations have chosen to continuously live in hazardous environments. Based on a long-term archaeological perspective, this paper shows human response,...