Dissent and Disruption: Uncovering an Archaeology of Political Friction in New York City

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Urban Dissonance: Violence, Friction, and Change" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

While the history of mass protest can take many forms in a variety of environments, urban spaces provide an ideal location to exert dissent. Due to urban spaces’ concentration of political, economic and social power, as well as sheer density of people, they can quickly take on material and symbolic importance that may last for centuries. Movements of people rising up to demand change against brutality, inequity, and tyranny leave debris, whether physical or emotional, in archaeological and historical records, yet can often be hidden from the public’s consciousness. This paper will take a documentary archaeological approach combined with insights from archaeological collections to conduct a time-depth tracing of the landscape to better understand the lineage of protest in New York City, in particular Lower Manhattan. We will look at how this history informs the current choreography of social movements happening in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology of Urban Dissonance: Violence, Friction, and Change   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology