Empowering Social Justice by Developing a Black Feminist Intersectionality Theoretical Perspective to Increase the Inclusiveness of Historical Markers in Detroit and Wayne County

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Deepening Archaeology's Engagement with Black Studies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A form of activist archaeology is undertaken by conducting research with a critical Black feminist intersectionality theoretical perspective to promote social justice in representations of America’s heritage on historical markers in Detroit and surrounding Wayne County, Michigan, USA. Contrary to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Black feminist intersectionality theory that revealed the identity of Black women is invisible in the American legal system, this research finds that historical markers make intersectional minorities and women visible by labeling and marking them as deviant from apparently universal normative marker texts that are really about white Anglo-American men, whose dominance on markers is invisible because they are not labeled. The inclusion of more intersectional information about minorities and women is proposed for existing and new historical markers to educate the public about their important accomplishments that have been erased from history, to provide social justice for people who were marginalized in the past, re-enfranchise modern marginalized people of their powerful pasts, and inspire people working to decrease inequalities and oppressions today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Deepening Archaeology's Engagement with Black Studies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37410.0