Creating Space for a Place: The River Street Public Archaeology Project

William White

Creating Space for a Place: The River Street Public Archaeology Project

Year: 2016

Summary

Community-based public archaeology projects seek to reclaim aspects of the past while addressing the needs and concerns of local communities. Sometimes this work places archaeologists in a position where we are forced to tack between the desire to conduct original research and the need to simultaneously navigate complex economic, social, and political constructs. All of this takes place in spaces, geographic, systemic, and paradigmatic, that both constrain and enable archaeological research.

The River Street Public Archaeology Project in Boise, Idaho is a perfect example of how local media, historic preservationists, archaeology advocates, and a constellation of educational and government organizations articulated in an attempt to reclaim the unwritten past of a multi-racial neighborhood. The 2015 field season can be used as a case study in how political and economic spaces construct and demarcate the use of geographic space and how archaeological data production can transcend limitations.

Cite this Record

Creating Space for a Place: The River Street Public Archaeology Project. William White. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434919)