Archaeological Ethnography for a Decolonizing Methodology in the Central Highlands of Peru

Summary

Ethnographic research is herein demonstrated to contribute a crucially important initial step in the re-construction of indigenous histories and to building a praxis of collaborative archaeology. Ethnographic research was conducted during two field seasons in 2015 and 2016 in and around the sprawling ruins of the capital city of the Wari Empire in the central highlands of Peru to reach an understanding of the contemporary cultural idiosyncrasies pertinent to the Peruvian historical context.

Collaborative archaeology has made great strides to address issues of the colonial embeddedness of archaeology, the decolonization of our discipline, and the social integration of descendant communities in prehistoric cultural research in the recent past. As a result, the discipline of archaeology has begun to adopt research methods that integrate native populations at every stage of the research in order to address these differences that split history into two parts in settler nations. However, multiscalar ethnographic research prior to attempting collaborative ventures have not yet been fully adopted by most researchers and it is the purpose of this presentation to demonstrate their validity and relevancy to establishing mutually beneficial, rather than need- or guilt- based, relationships for the protection and preservation of archaeological sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17603