Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement

Barbara J. Little is an archaeologist with the National Park Service. She has edited four volumes, including Public Benefits of Archaeology (2002), and she is the co-author (with Donald L. Hardesty) of Assessing Site Significance: A Guide for Archaeologists and Historians (2000). Paul A. Shackel is professor of Anthropology at the University of Maryland and is director of the Center for Heritage Resource Studies. He has edited six volumes and written four books and edited six volumes, including Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape (2003).

There is a new kind of public archaeology emerging; one that takes seriously archaeology’s potential to understand the past to give a sense of meaning for our future. This work has the familiar goals of inventorying significant sites and doing better archaeology. It also aims to build better communities. Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement provides us with lessons, sometimes painful and sometimes exhilarating, from some of our most accomplished colleagues, whose research has explored the ways in which we tell the truth about the past and thereby is a source of hope for the future.

• 0 Introduction: Archaeology and Civic EngagementChapter 1 History, Justice, and ReconciliationChapter 2 Civic Engagement at Werowocomoco: Reasserting Native Narratives from a Powhatan Place of PowerChapter 3 Beyond Strategy and Good Intentions: Archaeology, Race and White PrivilegeChapter 4 Politics, Inequality, and Engaged Archaeology: Community Archaeology along the Color LineChapter 5 Remaking Connections: Archaeology and Community after the Loma Prieta EarthquakeChapter 6 Voices from the Past: Changing the Culture of Historic House Museums with ArchaeologyChapter 7 Archaeology- the "Missing Link" to Civic Engagement? An Introspective Look at the Tools of Reinvention and Reengagement in Lancaster, PennsylvaniaChapter 8 Civil Religion and Civically Engaged Archaeology: Researching Benjamin Franklin and the Pragmatic SpiritChapter 9 Reconnecting the Present with its Past: The Doukhobor Pit House Public Archaeology ProjectChapter 10 Heritage in Hampden: A Participatory Research Design for Public Archaeology in a Working-Class Neighborhood, Baltimore, MarylandChapter 11 Civic Engagement and Social Justice: Race on hte Illinois FrontierChapter 12 Learning through Visitors: Exhibits as a Tool for Encouraging Civic Engagement through Archaeology