Archaeology and Abelism : Using Disability Scholarship to Rethink Archaeological Fieldwork

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Where Accessibility and Inclusion Meet: Archaeology in the Age of Covid and Beyond" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Even prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic, archaeological fieldwork presented many barriers to access, including financial, institutional, and physical. In this paper I focus on the inherently ableist nature of archaeological fieldwork, which is caused and compounded by the mythology of the rugged archaeologist and our attachment as archaeologists to this mode of operation. I will examine both acconts of the experiences of doing field work, and disability scholarship around inclusion. Archaeology’s set of methodological tools are increasingly used to study disability and ability throughout time. I will turn some of that reflexivity towards how we practice our discipline in the present-day. I will also provide non-exhaustive suggestions for how we can turn to the creation of more inclusive field experiences, which often occur within underfunded and time constrained parameters.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021   •
• Where Accessibility and Inclusion Meet: Archaeology in the Age of Covid and Beyond

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology