Thinking Through “Community” In Archaeological Practice

Abstract

Community engagement is a central component of archaeology. Whether it is initiated through local, state, or national regulatory frameworks or as part of academic research, working with stakeholders is often structurally incorporated into project plans. However, what defines a community, and how this conception impacts archaeological practice is frequently not problematized. This conversation discusses the practice of archaeology as it engages with communities, and some of the difficulties encountered. If archaeology is going to be a holistically engaged discipline it must take seriously the complexities of communities and the impacts of its practice.

Students Are Stakeholders in On-Campus Archaeology

“…In recent decades, there has been a notable growth in theoretical discussions of community, collaborative, and co-creative archaeologies (e.g., Atalay 2012; Bollwerk et al 2015; Colwell 2016; Marshall 2002). Within these writings, a consistent challenge has been the appropriate identification and understanding of stakeholder communities, with practitioners regularly reporting populations to be polysemous and diverse in meaning, composition, opinion, politics, and interests (e.g., Humphris and Bradshaw 2017; Layton 1989; Ozawa et al 2018). Stakeholder theory (e.g., Matthews 2008; Rico 2017; Shakour et al 2019; Zimmerman and Branam 2014) offers a framework for identifying the consequences of archaeological work in the world, as well as the institutional and individual actors who affect it.…”