Anthropology

The task of decolonizing the practice of archaeology for a collaborative community project in the public sector is one that is at times easier said than done. While many archaeologists working in federal, state and local agencies may subscribe to a postcolonial approach to research and dissemination of data, political bureaucracy, budget cuts, limited staff and time, among other issues, all make this endeavor challenging to say the least. However, for federal agencies, a variety of laws and ordinances requiring public outreach provide opportunities to pursue a community-centered practice. Compared to many academic community archaeology projects, a federal approach appears to be more top-down ‘outreach’ rather than dialogic ‘engagement’ with the community. Consequently, this paper will discuss ways in which ‘outreach’ can be a stepping-stone to a community-based approach to these projects. It will highlight several successes and hardships in conducting community-engaged archaeology in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Given this agency’s mission to support citizens and first responders in all stages of disasters from preparation to recovery, it is not the first agency one thinks of when imagining public sector archaeology, yet it provides a unique setting in which to conduct community archaeology.

Collaboration versus Consultation—terms involving working with stakeholders; consultation implies a formulaic, reactionary product while collaboration suggests a voluntary, shared method and a mutual goal. Within this decolonial approach to conducting archaeology little discussion surrounds what this looks like within the public sector in the United States. Since consultation as mandate is based in a colonial process and has definitive bureaucratic boundaries, the question arises can public sector archaeologies take a postcolonial approach to required consultation? If so, how? This paper looks at areas of constraint and potential spaces for moving beyond the mandate of consultation within a federal agency.

Executive Summary for Stakeholders
It is the goal of this work to provide potential points of departure for a variety of communities that are involved with catastrophe preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. This includes but is not limited to those working in extremely localized spaces like community nongovernmental organizations to more political organized units of government at the state and federal level. I hope that some of the points discussed in the following chapter allow people to question the repetitive acts of engagement dictated through policy that keeps communities in a perpetual state of treading water to climate change, rather than truly responding to it. This chapter looks into collaborative efforts that were developed in response to Superstorm Sandy connecting publics to rebuilding efforts through shared heritage places and preservation efforts. The hope is that the theoretical points developed here provide a potential point of reference to more pragmatic and applied processes, with space for the thoughts presented here to transform into new practices as well. As these examples move from top-down political federal endeavors used in public policy to molded theoretical thoughts discussed in academic circles, I hope they will morph back again into the public arena from a more bottom-up approach, to be exposed, be critiqued, and include more nuanced collaborative responses that address particular needs of communities in response to disasters.

How do we know what we believe to know about the past? This class will dive into this question by introducing students to archaeology, a sub-discipline of anthropology that explores the human past through materiality. An overview of archaeological method and theory and current approaches to the practice in a postcolonial lens will be central to the course. Topics will include: history of the discipline, how societies were organized, subsistence patterns, technology and trade, and analytical approaches. In addition, the course will explore some of the present issues within the field of archaeology such as site stewardship, professional ethics, relationships between archaeologists and stakeholders of the past, as well as the display of culture to the general public. Class will use lectures, class discussions, reading materials, visual media, and field trips to explore the topics discussed above. Student Learning Outcomes: • Demonstrate the understanding of the relationship between and importance of the four subfields of anthropology for the field as a whole. • Demonstrate the understanding of human diversity and unity of humans. • Demonstrate the appreciation of individual and social diversity