Having It All in the Field: Families, Inclusivity, Career Development, and Archaeological Fieldwork

Summary

This is an abstract from the "What Have You Done For Us Lately?: Discrimination, Harassment, and Chilly Climate in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Participation in archaeological fieldwork poses numerous practical challenges. This paper will address some difficulties that arise from the decision to start a family. The choice to have children frequently affects archaeologists working to establish their careers, namely (female) graduate students, junior faculty, and field technicians. Young archaeologists may have small children who are not yet old enough to be separated from a parent or may not have the financial resources to pay for childcare while in the field. Furthermore, many projects do not have, or earmark, funding for childcare, nor do they have the facilities to accommodate participants’ families. As a result, many archaeologists, especially women, who are trying to establish their careers are forced to choose: fieldwork or family. Those who opt to start families may be at a professional disadvantage when they return to the field, due to missed excavation and publication opportunities. This paper will examine how one field project, the Poggio Civitate Archaeological Project, has created an affiliated not-for-profit entity, in part to raise funds that offset the costs of childcare. As a result, the project supports young archaeologists with families, as part of a larger effort to promote inclusivity and early career development in archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• What Have You Done For Us Lately?: Discrimination, Harassment, and Chilly Climate in Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25159