A People's Preservation Revisited

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Advocacy in Archaeology: Thoughts from the Urban Frontier" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper follows up my presentation at the 2019 SHA conference where I proposed but did not define the concept of A People's Preservation. This paper picks up this unfinished work. Through illustrations of research and advocacy related to the archaeology and history of urban and suburban Essex County, NJ, I examine how the resources of preservation are unevenly deployed. My conclusion is that preservation remains a self-centered field so concerned with its own narrow conceptions of preservation practice that its efforts to serve its host communities fall significantly short. Alternative preservation practices focused on the urban history of Orange, NJ provide examples for how to combine advocacy and preservation in the way communities themselves are envisioned as asset filled spaces ripe for new narratives about the past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advocacy in Archaeology: Thoughts from the Urban Frontier   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 419