Black Studies and the Ontological Politics of Knowledge Production in African Diaspora Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Thinking with, through, and against Archaeology’s Politics of Knowledge" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists often draw on theories from other disciplines to frame their research, which invariably draws our work into the orbit of larger political debates within and outside the academy. Even a subtle gravitational pull from these political bodies of theory can have substantial effects on how archaeologists conceive of past realities, especially since many social theories continue to perpetuate racist, colonial, capitalist, and sexist world views they were originally developed to justify. To demonstrate the effect this can have on archaeological knowledge production, my paper uses the work of Black studies theorist Sylvia Wynter to explore how archaeological studies that draw from neo-evolutionary and behavioral ecological theories define what it means to be human in ways that pulls their work into the orbit of, and unintentionally reproduces, discourses intended to racialize and dehumanize Black women and men. While these theories are problematic in archaeology writ large, their use in African diaspora archaeology can be especially damaging for the people whose lives we study and whose descendants we collaborate with.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Thinking with, through, and against Archaeology’s Politics of Knowledge

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38785.0