So this recent piece on whiteness and archaeology is stirring up some much needed discussion about why most archaeologists being white matters (a thread).
First, I must position myself. I am a white-coded Métis woman. I benefit from white privilege and I am a tenured professor of archaeology, another position of privilege. My privilege means I am heard ways my #BIPOC colleagues are not.
I am an Indigenous scholar in a field where most people who study the pasts of my paternal ancestors are white settlers. Archaeologists have told the story of my ancestors in educational institutions and the public for 150+ years.
The vast majority of archaeology that happens in the Americas is on Indigenous pasts and is done by non-Indigenous folks.
Demographically, the SAA membership is very white, with the most recent data showing that 77.7% are “Caucasian”, 6.7% Hispanic/Latino(a), 1.9% Asian/Pacific Islander, .8% Native American, and .3% Black (remaining %s are in other, mixed, or no answer). Why does this matter?
The history of archaeology in colonial contexts is directly tied to the attempted (and forced) elimination and dispossession of Indigenous peoples.
Living Indigenous communities were displaced, and non-Indigenous archaeologists came in, dug up our ancestors and their belongings, and interpreted these to tell the stories of those lands. These are not our stories.
Many archaeologists now work with Indigenous communities to tell shared stories of the past, but the recent letter endorsed by the SAA and written by two non-Indigenous archaeologists shows we have a long way to go.
Without representation of BIPOC people in archaeology, the narratives remain shaped by whiteness. This is similar to the critique by white women in the 1980s about needing to explore women’s experiences in the past, leading to feminist archaeologies.
Indigenous stories of the past need to be told. Black stories of the past need to be told. Queer stories of the past need to be told. Gender diverse stories of the past need to be told.
One need only look at the responses to Dr. Battle-Baptiste’s tweet on the future of archaeology being anti-racist to see how anti-Blackness is built into the discourse.
I realized that in my able-bodied privilege, I failed to note that stories of disability in the past need to be told. And not just through a "pathology" framework.
