Decolonizing Mohenjo Daro: A Participatory Approach to Archaeology in Pakistan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Expanding the geographic coverage of the Collaborative and Community symposium to the Global South, this presentation covers the 25 years of community-based and participatory work done in South Asia, with a particular emphasis on the last five in Pakistan at the World Heritage Site of Mohenjo-Daro. Our archaeological collaboration is run under the Laboratory of Integrated Archaeological Visualization and Heritage (LIAVH.org) at the Pratt Institute. LIAVH makes connections between technology, archaeological data management, and heritage practice. For a century, Mohenjo-Daro has been excavated, photographed, drawn, mapped, and written about, and yet, there is still so much we cannot quite figure out about the ancient city. In this presentation, we will highlight the 2023–2024 winter field season focused on a program of photogrammetry using both drones and hand-held cameras. A key component of this research is pedagogic and participatory, specifically focused on building capacity through teaching workshops and including local and regional specialists and students of archaeology. Rather than pursuing archaeology as an extractive exercise, this research engenders generative modes of knowledge production and sharing.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative and Community Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38284.0