“​​To Have Expertise Be Recognized”: Black Women Archaeologists, Obligation, and Archaeological Expertise

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, archaeological organizations and universities organized panels to address anti-Black racism in archaeology. These talks and panels relied on Black women’s sense of obligation to better not only the field of archaeology but the climate for Black people in the United States as a whole. Rather than these institutions calling upon their expertise as both archaeologists and Black women, these organizations invited Black women to speak solely about anti-Black racism, denying them a venue to demonstrate expertise on their archaeological research. Obligation informs much of the academic labor Black women undertake in their institutions, field sites, and relationships with other Black women. These acts of care circulate, support, and strengthen the community of Black women in archaeology and aid in developing their professional identities. Through ethnographic research, this paper explores how institutions leverage Black women’s sense of obligation and ethics of care to devalue and tokenize Black women’s archaeological expertise.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37315.0