A Reflexive Paradigm: Improving Understanding of our Shared Human Heritage

Summary

BOEM’s historic preservation program is based in stewardship, science-informed decisions, and scientific integrity. To achieve these values, we utilize best practices of inclusiveness in our community science programs. By actively seeking varied ways of knowing, e.g, traditional knowledge and landscape approaches, we allow for concurrent historic contexts to be defined and understood at various scales. Considering our jurisdiction covers 1.76 billion acres of submerged federal lands, these approaches can profoundly alter our understanding of place, uniting individuals of highly disparate backgrounds, and improving appreciation of our shared human heritage. In the near term, they protect against short-sighted budgetary "solutions." In the longer term, archaeology performed in this way can address historical traumas, embody multiple ways of knowing, and improve the science as a whole. This paper will highlight studies recently completed and ongoing, and provide examples of the importance, value, and challenges surrounding public archaeology, as we have experienced it.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Motivation and Community in Public Archaeology Evaluation   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 291