#  State of the Field 2018: Archaeology and Social Justice 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 3, 2018** 

 09:00AM - 06:00PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, Rhode Island Hall Room 108, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island**  



 

 



 

 Brown University’s [Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World ](http://www.brown.edu/go/archaeology)will host a workshop called *State of the Field 2018: Archaeology and Social Justice* on March 2-3, 2018. The workshop will be the culmination of two years of discussion on this theme, but is also intended to raise new issues, ask new questions, and encourage ongoing dialogue.

 Our gathering builds on a tradition of “[State of the Field](http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/workshops/stateofthefield/)” workshops hosted by the Joukowsky Institute to reflect upon trends in archaeological work, each year focusing our discussion on issues impacting an area of particular interest to our faculty and students. While previous versions have dealt with a country or region of archaeological significance, this year’s event will focus on archaeology’s relationship to ongoing movements for social justice.

 Within the context of archaeology, we conceive of social justice as pertaining to issues of privilege and opportunity that affect the makeup of scholars in the field, efforts among archaeologists to engage with the public and with broader social and political discussions, and the degree to which archaeological scholarship and pedagogy intersect with or impact these issues. It also refers to the asymmetries of power and structural inequalities in society at large. This choice of topic has been inspired by recent global social and political concerns, responses from universities and academia that seek to address issues of representation and access, and most importantly, grassroots movements for social justice.

 This workshop thus seeks to engage primarily with the role of archaeology in contemporary social justice movements, while insisting that discussions of diversity in the past can inform experience in the present.

##  CONFERENCE PROGRAM

####  **Saturday, March 3rd**  
**Rhode Island Hall, Room 108**

#####  **Session 1 – Constructions of Blackness and Whiteness**

 9:00 – 9:05am – Introduction

 9:05 – 9:25am – **Nala Williams** (University of Washington)  
*The Future is Black: A Critical (Re)imagining of a Black Feminist Epistemology and Methodological Framework in Archeology*

 9:25 – 9:45am – **Matthew Reilly** (City College of New York)  
*Archaeologies of Whiteness*

 9:45 – 9:55am – **Vuyiswa Lupuwana**, **Navashni Naidoo** and **Simon Hall** (University of Cape Town)  
*The Archaeology of Remembering: Colonial Spectres and the Processes of Repackaging the Materiality of Violence, Displacement and Disenfranchisement*

 9:55 – 10:25am – Discussion

 10:25 – 10: 45am – Coffee break

#####  **Session 2 – Diversity and Epistemic Justice**

 10:45 – 10:50am – Introduction

 10:50 – 11:10am – **Nora Shalaby** (Abydos Temple Paper Archive Project)  
*Reclaiming a Narrative: Untold Egyptian Histories from Early Egyptology*

 11:10 – 11:30am – **Laura E. Heath-Stout** (Boston University)  
*Who Writes about Archaeology? An Intersectional Study of Authorship in Archaeological Journals*

 11:30 – 11:50am – **Debby Sneed** (UCLA)  
*Too Disabled to Dig: In/Accessible Archaeology and Who Suffers?*

 11:50am – 12:20pm – Discussion

 12:20 – 1:50pm – Lunch break

#####  Session 3 – Material Memory and the Archaeologies of Resistance

 1:50 – 1:55pm – Introduction

 1:55 – 2:15pm –  **Rui Gomes Coelho** (Rutgers University) and **Xurxo Ayán Vila** (University of the Basque Country)  
*‘An Old Woman Gave Us Shelter’: Archaeology of Resistance in the Spanish-Portuguese Border*

 2:15 – 2:35pm – **Francesco Iacono** (University of Cambridge) and **Eleni Stefanou** (Hellenic Open University)  
*The Past as an Asset vs. the Past as a Social Reservoir for Political Action: The Case of Lakki, Leros, Greece*

 2:35 – 2:55pm – M**arjolijn Kok** (Bureau Archeologie en Toekomst)  
*Remembering the Invisible; Archaeology of Modern Protest*

 2:55 – 3:25pm – Discussion

 3:25 – 3:45pm – Coffee break

#####  Session 4 – Business as Usual? Engaging with Social Justice

 3:45 – 3:50pm – Introduction

 3:50 – 4:10pm – **Christopher Matthews** (Montclair State University)  
*Ethnographic Archaeology, Routine Archaeologies, and Social Justice Research*

 4:10 – 4:30pm – **Richard M. Leventhal**, **Tiffany C. Cain**, and **Kasey Diserens** (University of Pennsylvania)  
*Social Justice in the Maya Area: Reframing the Past in the Present*

 4:30 – 4:50pm – **Claire Novotny** (Kenyon College)  
*Archaeologists as Advocates: Balancing Power Inequalities for an Equitable Future*

 4:50 – 5:20pm – Discussion

 5:20 – 6:00pm – Closing



 

 



 

 

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