Urban Erasures: Historical and Contemporary Archaeologies

Abstract

This short essay is an introduction to a thematic collection of three articles on urban erasures. This essay provides an overview of the articles and situates the collection at the intersection of critical heritage studies, contemporary archaeology, and collaborative community-based research.

“Where Are All the Black People At?”: Landscapes of Erasure in the Flower City

“…“Sorry about tonight,” she said. “I am not sure what he was trying to say but I found his comments offensive.” Christopher Matthews contends, “at stake in urban public heritage is indeed the possibility of the erasure of past and present communities, who are prone to be not only ignored but also forgotten as narratives of place are constructed in their absence” (2020, 6). Conflict over this rebranding effort marked the space as a hotly “contested memorial assemblage” (Matthews 2020, 6).…”

“…In this article—a “report back” from early fieldwork for an ongoing and COVID‐disrupted project exploring the entanglements of race and space in Rochester—I argue that this and other “discursive bulldozers” (Matthews 2020, 7), along with more concrete iterations of policy, community‐engaged design, cultural and historical preservation, and actual demolition, contribute to ongoing exclusion, absence, and erasure of Blackness and Black people from the urban landscape. However, returning to the interrogative stop sign, I want to trouble the terms by which this question—where are all the Black people at—is posed.…”

“…7 7 Matthews provides examples of urban erasure in New York City, such as the African Burial Ground and Seneca Village. He explores “how stories and meanings of urban places are subject to erasure by being physically demolished and subsequently (if not formerly) denigrated and forgotten because they represent minority histories and presumably lack significance” (2020, 8). In a racially saturated landscape like Rochester, these erasures are often racial in nature. …”