Tag: social justice
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The Dangers of ‘Dialogue’ in Violent Times: Obscuring Power Dynamics in the Heritage Sector (and Beyond)
A few weeks ago, I attended a conference that included a session on what the organisers referred to as ‘the Israel-Palestine Conflict’. Now, of course, this in itself was full of warning signs (are we really going to minimise genocide by referring to it as a ‘conflict’?), but given the silence of many parts of
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Finding Hope in Archaeology at the End of the World
At the time of writing this, it is 10am in the United Kingdom on the 6th November 2024. As an American migrant over here, I’ve unsurprisingly been watching with dread as the results begin to trickle in and despite my deep criticisms of electoral politics, its hard not to feel very depressed and worried about
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Does Zooarchaeology Matter? A Case for Actionable Animal Archaeologies
The following is a transcript of my keynote talk from the Zooarchaeology Saves the World conference held in May 2022. Introduction Does zooarchaeology matter? Perhaps this is an intentionally provocative question to ask zooarchaeologists but given the status of the world today – the intensification of climate change, the rise of fascism across the globe,
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Moving Towards Decolonisation – Proposing a Framework for Action in Universities
The following transcript is from a conference paper I presented in 2022 as part of the Making Diversity Interventions Count Annual Conference at the University of Braford. It is also an expansion of a previous paper I presented on decolonising zooarchaeology, and proposes a more institutional-wide approach to moving towards decolonisation. Introduction Since the 2020
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Repairing Relations through Research: An Archival Approach to Institutional Accountability
Note: This blog post is adapted from an abandoned journal paper that I originally wrote in 2021. Introduction From the perspective of many people from marginalised backgrounds and historically looted communities, the museum continues to be a symbol of colonialism. Despite renewed calls for decolonisation, repatriation, and restitution, museums are arguably still behind in progressing
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Gesturing Beyond Bones: Proposing a Decolonised Zooarchaeology
This is the text from a talk I gave at the Approaches to Decolonising Research event organised by the Decolonising the Curriculum Working Group at Liverpool John Moores University. If you’re interested in reading the talk that formed the basis of this one, you can find that transcript here. The call to decolonise archaeology is
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Building Barricades and Breaking Sh*t: The Archaeology of Protest and Dissent
After a year of many protests, it will be interesting to examine what the archaeological record says about 2020. Protests have always interested me as a form of archaeology given how varied the characteristics of a protest can be – is it an impromptu, one-off event? A pre-planned occupation that lasted several days? Did it
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Archaeology as Violence: Confronting the Dynamics of a Violent Practice and Theory
Note: This is part of a book chapter I wrote a few years ago for a now-defunct project. After a few attempts to submit it to several journals, I gave up on it. I recently brought it out to aid in the writing of a new paper and figured it might be worth posting it
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Community-Led, Community-Run: The Blathers’ Approach to Museum Curation
In the Animal Crossing video game series, Blathers is the rather stereotypical curator of the local museums; a straight-laced nerd who punctuates his educational rambling with “wot?” and is dutiful in his collecting…even if he has to occasionally handle a bug or two. But what is less stereotypical is his curatorial approach as the head
Animal Archaeology 