Moving beyond Redemptive Archaeology on the California Coast

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Social Justice in Native North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The past two decades of archaeology in California have produced several examples of successful indigenous and community-based research. There are still other examples of a lingering tension between archaeologists and tribes as the agendas of western science and indigenous epistemologies grate against one another. This current climate of getting along while staying the same gives shape to an archaeology in which the values of indigenous communities are often secondary to an archaeology driven by a sense of debt or threat. As we discuss, this redemptive archaeology conceals two important ideas. First, examples from the 1970s and earlier demonstrate that California tribes and archaeologists can and have worked productively under a rubric of social justice. Second, archaeology has the capacity to be much more than meets the eye. To illustrate this, we present two case examples of our efforts at practicing more inclusive and socially just research. This work, ostensibly called "archaeology," is fundamentally about empowering Indigenous communities by foregrounding their histories, concerns, and goals. The first example addresses two decades of research in Marin County with Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people. The second example examines the early stages of a collaborative project co-created with Salinan T'rowt'raahl in Monterey County.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Social Justice in Native North American Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24041