Materializing the Momentary: Community Engagement Through Ethnographic Practice

Summary

Community engagement is a growing aspect of archaeological practice; not only are archaeologists realizing that these kinds of projects are increasingly important to the movement of decolonization in regards to the histories of under-represented communities, but also that these relationships produce valuable knowledge about sites and their life histories. This paper specifically examines the unique ethnographic moment that arises when descendants and archaeologists come together in the practice of archaeological investigation. I assert that the sensory experience of the materialities of the past create a moment for engaging with memories, ideas, and emotions about sites, their inhabitants, and their artifacts which cannot be accessed or explored any other way. As such, this requires a re-orientation of research design and theoretical interpretations to account for this knowledge. To discuss implications of this reorientation, I’ll present examples from my work on the Historic Archaeology Project of Lawrence County, a project which examined processes of racialization during the 19th and early 20th century through excavations centered around rural Black-owned farmsteads in Southeastern Illinois. I will conclude by asserting that collaborative community archaeology offers a rich anthropological opportunity to examine how we, as both archaeologists and community members, know and reproduce our histories.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Archaeologies by Community Mandate: Practicing Collaborative and Community-Engaged Research

Keywords

Spatial Coverage