Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy

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 "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This poster symposium brings together researchers from the Cultural Landscapes of the Irish Coast project and the Bova Marina Archaeological Project, southern Italy, to facilitate a broader discussion and comparison of rural communities in two different settings: the western Irish coast and southwestern Calabria of Italy. Although many surface differences exist—chiefly climate and environment—deeper similarities may reveal themselves when archaeologists embed themselves in local communities and seek to work with community members to tell broad stories about life, sustenance, and continuity and change in local ways of life. How do people in these communities relate to and manage their local tangible and intangible heritage practices? How did people work together in largely self-sustaining ways to build livelihoods? How are these communities affected by processes of globalization, modernization, and out-migration? This session aims to start a dialogue between two groups of researchers in order to elucidate these and other questions related to rural coastal livelihoods over the past two centuries.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)

  • Documents (7)

Documents
  • Building Island Futures with Heritage-Based Tools: Archival Records from Inishark and Inishbofin, Co. Galway, Ireland (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Gráinne Malone. Meredith Chesson. Tommy Burke. Meagan Conway. Ian Kuijt.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries under British rule, tax assessors, census takers, and Church personnel routinely recorded key aspects of the lives of Inishark and Inishbofin islanders. This research...

  • Climate Change and Rural Livelihood in Calabria, Italy (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Isaac Ullah. Meredith Chesson. Paula Lazrus. Kostalena Michelaki.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding how human activity, climate systems, ecosystems, and earth surface processes interact to change the capacity for different human livelihoods over time is crucial to finding livable strategies for coping with...

  • Exploring the Gray Zone between Archaeology, Historical Records, and Oral History: Developing a Residential Biography of Building 57, Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Kuijt. Meredith Chesson. Grainne Malone.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How do historical archaeologists reconstruct the life-history of residential buildings, and to what extent can archaeology, ethnography, and oral history be combined to generate a life history? The concept of house and...

  • Household and Community Scales of Post-Famine Demographic Change in Western Ireland (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meagan Conway.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The national demographic ramifications of the Irish potato famine in the late nineteenth century are well documented; however, there is an absence of full understanding of the continuum of its social and psychological...

  • Sustainable Futures in Southern Calabria: Vibrant Communities, Farming Heritage, and Loving the Rural Life (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith S. Chesson. Isaac Ullah. Paula Lazrus. Kostalena Michelaki. Giovanni Iiriti.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Small rural towns throughout Italy struggle with declining populations, and many sell houses for extraordinarily little money to lure people to become residents and invest in these communities. The Bova Marina...

  • Traditional Lifeways as Knowledge of the Past and for the Future (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Lazrus.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Traditional farming, cooking and craft production provided a stable and integrated set of taskscapes to citizens of the Bovese for generations. As a result, the conflicts, and challenges of living in a region of Italy that...

  • Using Ethnographic Skills while Excavating: Exploring the Longevity of a Community Archaeology Project in Western Ireland (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katie Shakour.

    This is an abstract from the "Making Historical Archaeology Matter: Rethinking an Engaged Archaeology of Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Rural Communities of Western Ireland and Southern Italy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Community archaeology brings people from different backgrounds together to investigate the past, and each group contributes to the project in unique ways. While many articles discuss best practices, generic, formulaic...