Archaeology as Medicine: Rebuilding Trust Through Community-Engaged Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Like individual people, no two communities are alike. Successful public history museums focus on building trust with and reaching out to the communities whose stories they share.

But conflicts still arise, especially when an institution has in the past played a role in that community's historical erasure.

This paper explores Colonial Williamsburg's ongoing efforts to build bridges between the work we do as a museum and the descendant communities connected to that work—especially the descendants of enslaved people related to Custis Square and those of the Williamsburg First Baptist Church, a congregation founded by free and enslaved Black worshippers. Further, it will discuss how geographical and historical distance, community displacement, and institutional complexity are impacting Colonial Williamsburg’s approach to community engagement and how archaeology has been a first step toward sharing a more complete history and rebuilding trust.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow