What Can Archaeology Tell Us about Refugees and Forced Immigration?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The authors in this session use archaeological methods to analyze refugees and forced migrations. We seek to better understand the material ramifications of migration in the lives of individuals. We wish to understand the tangible, material consequences of migration at a human scale. The papers in the session spring from historical archaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary. We study the experiences of refugees and immigrants as a material process. We use archaeology to find detail in the seeming chaos of migration in the past and the present. Our studies reveal the complex relationship that the material shares with social relations, meaning, and agency. The study of mute, ancient artifacts forced archaeologists to develop techniques to understand the human condition without discursive evidence. We use these techniques to provide a distinctive perspective on migration that integrates archaeological methods with history and ethnography. An emphasis on the human condition and a commitment to making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic makes this archaeology intensely anthropological and differentiates it from most histories. Ultimately, we recognize the political nature of archaeology, explicitly advocate for communities, and seek help those communities to address contemporary issues and/or create usable pasts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23053