Community-Defined Heritage and Uncertain Futures

Summary

This is an abstract from the "At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation considers heritage as defined by members of stakeholder communities that have experienced a history of displacement as well as the pressures of disaster capitalism/neoliberal development. It explores the value of community-defined concepts of heritage to the process of preserving heritage as defined by scientific and academic communities. How does a community conceptualize the past and cultural heritage when confronted with significant environmental change? What strategies are being practiced on individual and community levels to protect places and activities that support the transmission of cultural knowledge? As specialists consider the future of threatened heritage sites and identify strategies for preservation, how might these localized, community-driven actions affect their decision-making? How is our work as scientists and researchers supporting the heritage interests of threatened communities? While archaeologists and other researchers are concerned with issues of preservation in the face of development and climate change, local communities may feel a greater urgency to protect their day-to-day lives. This qualitative work was informed by interviews with members of communities of relevance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39514.0