On the Front Line: Collaborative Archaeology between CRM Archaeologists, Academics and First Nations Communities.

Summary

First Nation’s heritage concerns are at the forefront of many large-scale and controversial development projects across the province of British Columbia. How developers and Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Archaeologists choose to address these concerns can significantly impact working and political relationships. CRM archaeologists are on the front lines balancing and navigating complex, and sensitive socio-political heritage issues. Our small CRM company, Kleanza Consulting Ltd. (Kleanza), has found success conducting collaborative research in this challenging environment. We have found that in order to conduct meaningful work, archaeologists must be sensitive, adaptable, flexible, and above all must practice a community based and community driven approach. This approach requires a large investment building relationships between competing CRM companies, academics, contractors, and clients. Researchers must be locally based to gain specialized community knowledge and understand how to work within complex current and traditional socio-political frameworks. This presentation focuses on a selection of projects that demonstrate the changing dynamics of CRM archaeology and community collaboration in the face of considerable development.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative and Community Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage