Politics of Heritage Values: How Archaeologists Deal with Place, Social Memories, Identities, and Socioeconomics

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Politics of Heritage Values: How Archaeologists Deal with Place, Social Memories, Identities, and Socioeconomics" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The last decades have moved the concept of “heritage” to the forefront of cultural resources management, historic preservation legislation, the tourism industry, academic institutions, and nonprofits. Since the official definition by UNESCO in 1972, heritage discussions have become increasingly fluid and contested. In the Americas, archaeologists engage with descendant communities over questions of ownership and rights to certain places and excavated materials. The core challenge in these conflicts is that in Indigenous knowledge systems, sense of place, boundaries, law, and history do not align with the Western system. Social memory may lay claim to places and cultural objects contradicting Western constructions of borders and histories. The concept of heritage raises related questions when we look at countries in Europe and the Middle East, where modern people live in and around archaeological sites and have strong feelings about place and history. This panel asks how can heritage discourse be made meaningful and productive in the social sciences in the twenty-first century? How could heritage objectives empower archaeology and grow knowledge by decolonizing? And how can fruitful and trusting partnerships form between archaeologists and Indigenous people? Archaeology-based case studies from different parts of the world are welcome.