Archaeology as Radical Care

Abstract

A guiding frame for much of my activism is contending with the juxtaposition of how the world is and how I believe the world ought to be (i.e. just). I also think deeply about how our research practice can create the conditions to get there (i.e. to a just world). Within this process I have found that justice flourishes within frameworks of care, generosity, and a heart-centered approach.1 These acts of kindness and care are radical within the (settler) colonial frameworks which inform, code, and maintain archaeological practice in most of the world today: a world in which care is coded as unscientific and biased. It is important to recognize that it is precisely in those spaces of care and kindness that transformative practices emerge.2 These gestures have the capacity to become healing balms for the many bodies of difference who experience the violence of the institution and academy.