Which Stories for Which Storytelling? A Community-Based Approach to the Nineteenth- to Twentieth-Century Nunatsiavummiut Material Heritage

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation discusses archaeological research that is intended to create a space for the inhabitants to reconnect with their material heritage on the land. The project took place in the Nain region (Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada) in 2021 and 2022. It contributed to the Nunatsiavut Government policies by investigating Inuit material heritage facing conservation threat. This project seeks to step back from colonial perspectives by promoting narratives about the diversity of lifeways on the land. Rooted on a collaboration between Université Laval and the Archaeological Office of the Nunatsiavut Government, a community-based approach was adopted as a way to counter the helicopter research paradigm. A keystone was the anchoring on a local network of governmental institutions whose mandates are to defend Nain community interests. About 30 community members contributed in two ways: specialized services (guides, pilots) and nonspecialized contributions to excavations. The wage-earning policy aimed to shift from the specialization paradigm that relies on symbolic capital, to create spaces that entangle hiring with training for local workers. The gathering of perspectives from this diversity of actors fed the research with a need to refine research questions and root them in the complexity of local history.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39162.0