Collaborative Archaeology and Strategic Essentialism: Native Empowerment in Tidewater Virginia

Abstract

How should archaeologists respond to descendant communities whose essentialism runs counter to constructivist notions of identity? For native communities in Virginia, the 17th-century landscape described by Jamestown’s colonists represents a powerful documentary basis for countering discourse that denies or ignores their existence. Strategic essentialism tied to the notion of tribes as transhistorical subjects offers a means of connecting contemporary native communities to accepted national narratives. While such strategies may be necessary in the short term, research at Werowocomoco, capital of the Powhatan chiefdom ca. 1607, highlights other modes of native social construction. Tidewater communities constructed pluralistic networks prior to contact and reconfigured social ties after 1607. They have done so by incorporating new practices while retaining connections to meaningful places and kinship ties stretching across communities. The expanding involvement of native consultants in research at Werowocomoco and elsewhere provides a point of departure for ‘decolonizing’ discussions of this past.