Who is Part of the Community?: When Terms Like "Stakeholder" and "Descendant" Don’t Quite Cut it

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

For decades the archaeological community has worked towards a more publically-minded and inclusive discipline that strives for collaboration with the communities that it serves. Many of these discussions rightly center the descendants of the groups under study, or the people who live where archaeology is being conducted. Some groups, however, are united by their marginalization for their status as percieved “social outcasts.” These groups may not necessarily be united geographically or culturally and may not fit neatly into our understanding of a stakeholder, descendant, or community member. For example, practitioners of sex work have called for their inclusion in projects that study contemporary sex work—particularly when the study’s outcome directly informs how sex work is legislated. This paper proposes that the inclusion of the voices and perspectives of contemporary sex workers into archaeological analysis of historical sex work can affect the questions asked and interpretations of the archaeological material.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow