Empowering Social Justice And Equality By Making Minority Sites And Intersecting Power Dynamics Visible

Summary

Feminist critical intersectional theory emancipates constructions of the past from the symbolic violence of minority group exclusion perpetrated by historical narratives and archaeologies focused on the dominant social group of elite white men. Social justice and equality are empowered by historical markers, districts, heritage trails, statues, conferences, and K-college lesson plans that bring to light historic sites, experiences, and voices of minorities and women who were lost to history. Examples include how Boston’s Freedom Trail, which predominantly marks sites associated with important elite white men, has been counterbalanced by the Black Heritage Trail and five Women’s Heritage Trails, which include 17 of the sites identified in my surveys of over 120 women’s institutions that challenged historic male dominance in Boston’s public landscape. In Detroit, the African-American community materialized pride in its identity with historical markers at important African-American sites, as well as a statue and conference about the Underground Railroad. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Intersectionality as Emancipatory Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 298