Photo elicitation as a tool for expanded participation in community archaeology

Sesma, Elena

doi:10.1080/20518196.2020.1793074

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Walking interviews were especially insightful in the way the method enabled participants to reanimate their personal or collective memories in situ. Using a strategy similar to Basso's walking of the land with Western Apache guides (Basso 1996) I was able to access a version of the living landscape that is not often visible or legible to visitors to Eleuthera (tourists, developers, and real estate prospectors alike) by allowing the voices and perspectives of local descendants to direct a physical traversing of the land (Sesma 2021). This also allowed a richer historical landscape to emerge as individual recollections were rarely confined to a single period in the past.…”

Section: Social Stratigraphymentioning

confidence: 99%

2 Materializing Memory and Building Community: Contemporary Landscape Archaeology of a Nineteenth‐Century Bahamian Plantation

Sesma

2022

Archaeological Papers of the American

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The Millars Plantation on Eleuthera, Bahamas was first established in 1803 as a cotton plantation and remained in operation through the 1830s. After emancipation, the formerly enslaved community continued to live on and work the plantation acreage and surrounding areas, until 1871 when Ann Millar formally left the 2000 acre‐property to the descendants of her former slaves and servants. That descendant community still upholds their right to this land today, despite a series of legal challenges by Bahamian and foreign investors who seek to develop new tourism‐based economies in the area. In the process of documenting the historical landscape of the Millars Plantation through oral histories, ethnographic interviews, and landscape survey, the research revealed ways that residents today have materialized memory—piecing together object, story, and space—on a living landscape that has too often been framed as empty or relegated to the past. This chapter investigates the ways in which memory becomes rooted in the materiality of the South Eleuthera landscape. When read side‐by‐side, the archaeological and contemporary social stratigraphy of South Eleuthera illustrate this historical landscape's ongoing site formation and the ways in which community members use the memoryscape as a tool for community building and local advocacy.

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Section: Social Stratigraphymentioning

confidence: 99%

2 Materializing Memory and Building Community: Contemporary Landscape Archaeology of a Nineteenth‐Century Bahamian Plantation

Sesma

2022

Archaeological Papers of the American

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“…In one instance, project members requested copies of historical photographs from community members for local distribution and inclusion in publications (Diserens Morgan & Leventhal 2020). In another instance, outside the Yucatan peninsula, project members used 360° panoramas to facilitate interviews and collaborations with individuals who, for various reasons including decreased mobility, were unable to travel to the archaeological site or view the archaeological materials in person (Sesma 2021).…”

Section: Current Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photographic Insights from Engaged Archaeology: Yucatan and Beyond

Kurnick¹

2022

CAJ

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Photography has been a particularly important though often under-theorized aspect of archaeological research. Although seemingly simple representations, photographs are simultaneously objective and subjective, truthful and creative. This article considers the contradictory nature of photography generally and the specific relationship between photography and archaeology. It then looks at the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and examines how individuals have photographed ancient Maya sites, architecture and artifacts from the mid nineteenth century to the present. Initially used to support diffusionist theories of Maya origins, photography was later understood as a neutral and scientific way to record the Maya past. More recently, it has been used to share power more equitably with local communities and to make archaeology a more inclusive and relevant endeavour. Indeed, several have demonstrated that photography is a useful tool for engaged archaeology. This article argues that the reverse is also true: insights from engaged archaeology are useful tools for archaeological photography generally. By making photographic choices explicit and by including people and other aspects of the contemporary world in their photographs, scholars can emphasize that archaeology is a decisively human and necessarily political endeavour, and that archaeological sites and artifacts are dynamic and efficacious parts of the contemporary world.

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