Public Archaeology and Critical Histories: Collaborative Archaeology in Southern Illinois

Abstract

This article considers how historical archaeologists and scholars of African-American heritage can work to decolonize existing historical narratives about our communities. I discuss an archaeological and historical work on a farmstead in rural southern Illinois, occupied by my African-American ancestors from the early nineteenth century onward. This project’s goals are multi-faceted. I seek to contribute to the often-invisible histories of Black pioneers, and to undertake an excavation open to the public, aided by community participation, and centered on community members’ questions about the area’s past. While my professional research questions focus on examining the material residues of changing processes of racialization in the nineteenth century, as a stakeholder and community member my research goals focus on making archaeological history accessible to a rural community.