Finding the Balance: Case Studies in Collaboration and Community Engagement from the American Southwest

Summary

In this paper we explore the challenges and benefits of conducting archaeological field work in rural communities where many stakeholders have vested interests in our research. Doing work in such situations can often feel like a complicated juggling act as one seeks to build relationships with local landowners, diverse community members, and various government agencies, while at the same time meeting the needs of student participants and achieving research goals. The benefits to all parties, however, can be substantial. Our paper highlights two ongoing multi-institutional collaborations that are engaging the public, training young scholars, and answering "big picture" archaeological questions. We focus particularly on balancing public outreach with student education as we strive to raise awareness of the importance of cultural resources and the ethics of responsible archaeology.

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

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage