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"Beisaw, April M"
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The archaeology of institutional life
Institutions pervade social life. They express community goals and values by defining the limits of socially acceptable behavior. Institutions are often vested with the resources, authority, and power to enforce the orthodoxy of their time. But institutions are also arenas in which both orthodoxies and authority can be contested. Between power and opposition lies the individual experience of the institutionalized. Whether in a boarding school, hospital, prison, almshouse, commune, or asylum, their experiences can reflect the positive impact of an institution or its greatest failings. This interplay of orthodoxy, authority, opposition, and individual experience are all expressed in the materiality of institutions and are eminently subject to archaeological investigation. A few archaeological and historical publications, in widely scattered venues, have examined individual institutional sites. Each work focused on the development of a specific establishment within its narrowly defined historical context; e.g., a fort and its role in a particular war, a schoolhouse viewed in terms of the educational history of its region, an asylum or prison seen as an expression of the prevailing attitudes toward the mentally ill and sociopaths. In contrast, this volume brings together twelve contributors whose research on a broad range of social institutions taken in tandem now illuminates the experience of these institutions. Rather than a culmination of research on institutions, it is a landmark work that will instigate vigorous and wide-ranging discussions on institutions in Western life, and the power of material culture to both enforce and negate cultural norms.
eBook
From Alcatraz to Standing Rock: Archaeology and Contemporary Native American Protests (1969–Today)
Public and professional responses to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests reveal a space where archaeologists can potentially connect past and present. Archaeology has already been applied to protests over labor conditions, environment destruction, and weapons proliferation in both the United States and United Kingdom. Extending that work to Native American protests raises awareness of the legacy of the broken treaties that underlie many of these actions. For example, the 1969–1971 occupation of Alcatraz Island is where contemporary Native American protest history often begins. A simple pushpin map of protests since then shows that the DAPL protest at Standing Rock was unique only in its extensive media coverage. Building greater awareness of these actions will improve the ways archaeologists carry out their compliance responsibilities and respond to an often-misinformed public. Working with tribal colleagues to identify protest sites would enhance existing efforts to protect ancient sites and reinforce the need for tribal input in evaluating impacts to its cultural landscapes.
Journal Article
America's One-Room Schools: Sites of Regional Authority and Symbols of Local Autonomy, after 1850
Before the nineteenth – century's mandatory education laws, churches and towns created schools according to local needs. The one-room school was a product of local community and autonomy. Educational reformers sought to standardize schooling through guidelines for schoolhouse and playground design and standards for curriculum and attendance. These external reform movements provided the impetus for communities to reform or resist such impositions. America's social memory of the \"little red schoolhouse\" paints the picture of one-room schools as sites of conformity and innocence, but historical archaeology of specific schools reveals tensions encoded in these buildings, their documentary records, and associated artifact assemblages.
Journal Article
Memory, Identity, and NAGPRA in the Northeastern United States
Determinations of cultural affiliation in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) often rely on culture history and the direct-historical approach. Both methods ignore important developments in our understanding of identity. A recent NAGPRA claim illustrates an alternative. Using culture history and the direct-historical approach, it was difficult to ascribe the Engelbert Site of New York State to a federally recognized tribe because it contained material from multiple culture-historic taxa, often in the same feature. Taphonomic analyses of selected mixed deposits revealed a previously undocumented mortuary ritual that has since been found at other sites. Using memory as a framework for interpretation, this ritual appears reflective of a kinshipbased shared identity between culture-historic taxa. The multivocality of this ritual provided an additional means for evaluating cultural affiliation by ascribing a consciousness of history to the subjects of this repatriation claim.
Journal Article
Repatriation as Inspiration
At the turn of the twentieth century, American museums helped to legitimize archaeology as a scientific discipline. By the next century, repatriation legislation had forced archaeologists to confront the dehumanization that can take place when bodies and sacred objects are treated as scientific specimens. Charting the future(s) of archaeology-museum relationships requires us to (1) recognize where, when, and how harm has been done, (2) confront those harmful precedents, and (3) restructure collections and exhibits in ways that heal wounds and advance research. Current research on the 1916 Susquehanna River Expedition, an archaeology-museum project funded by George Gustav Heye, provides insight into how our predecessors viewed their work. Using the expedition project as backdrop, an archaeology professor and an undergraduate student engage in a dialogue that explores the changing roles of American museums as the public faces of archaeology, training grounds for young professionals, and cultural centers for us all.
Journal Article
