Digging Out after Decades of Fast Capitalism: Addressing Richmond’s Incomplete Archaeological Legacy Through Community-Based Projects and Advocacy

Author(s): Ellen Chapman; Jolene Smith

Year: 2020

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Slow Archaeology + Fast Capitalism: Hard Lessons and Future Strategies from Urban Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

As the epicenter of the Lost Cause mythology, Richmond is full of edifices to certain historical ideologies. At the same time, its archaeological record is replete with archaeological failures of enormous proportion. Using political history, development data, and the archaeological archive, this paper will examine how this archaeological absence has been crafted by development pressures, pro-business ideologies and presumptions, and the irrelevance of archaeology to the reification of Confederate myths. It will also provide an introduction to some of the slow archaeology projects now ongoing in the city to address these gaps using curatorial interventions, community consultation, digital archaeology, and political advocacy.

Cite this Record

Digging Out after Decades of Fast Capitalism: Addressing Richmond’s Incomplete Archaeological Legacy Through Community-Based Projects and Advocacy. Ellen Chapman, Jolene Smith. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457519)

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 254