CRM Workers Are Key to Changing Archaeology: Epistemic Lessons from Quebecois Practitioners

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology is the most common way for archaeologists to practice their craft in North America. As the field’s major workforce, CRM workers occupy a strategic position to change the discipline. In this presentation, I argue that an epistemic injustice framework can help CRM workers organize by participating in the collective creation of knowledge regarding their practice. Epistemic injustice places knowledge within power struggles to explain how various power dynamics come into play to exclude various groups from participating into the collective construction of knowledge about the world, how this exclusion works at subverting people’s development and ability to act, and how epistemic frictions are mandatory to enacting political change. To illustrate my point, I draw from my work as an organizer among Quebecois CRM workers between 2017 and 2020 to show how they started organizing by repossessing their right to collectively voice their concerns about their practice, as well as their right to be heard; how this led to epistemic frictions with some of their employers; how these frictions led them to create them first sector-wide archaeological union, one of the first in Canada. I conclude with a general view of the challenges that lie ahead.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37364.0