Investigation of the settlement pattern in Pohnpei and Kosrae in Micronesia using modern technology (drones), and by comparing the findings with oral tales collected from the community.

We propose to connect archaeological data in Pohnpei and Kosrae in Micronesia with village ethnography and active participation of villagers in the archaeological survey of their own communities. We propose to use drone-mounted lidar that can produce very highly detailed images and that can eliminate vegetation and modern construction from the view. These will help to visualize homescapes and coastal terrain in new ways of viewing the landscape. Villagers will meet in ethnographic sessions to apply their cultural knowledge of their island’s settlement and migration throughout the region. Archaeological knowledge will complement community knowledge. The project will contribute to current scholarship on indigenous knowledge in the face of western and colonial interpretation, and will provide a forum for islanders and western scholars to compare and contrast archaeological and ethnographic data as a space within which to co-produce knowledge of their migration history in the region.

Archeological and ethnographic research in North Carolina assessing patterns of the abandonment of African-American cemeteries, resulting in public programming and scholarly articles. (36 months)

Our goal is to contribute to national conversations about African Americans ongoing marginalization through research efforts on the racial exclusion that continues to haunt their final resting places. Specifically, resources, care, and attention have been differentially mobilized by communities across time with respect to cemetery preservation. Here, we propose a three-year project to recognize and reincorporate the contributions of those marginalized due to patterns of segregation, racism, and neglect as a way to more broadly reconsider American heritage and identity. Our key aims are to 1) evaluate a pattern of African American cemetery degradation, 2) examine the multicausal process by which cemeteries become abandoned, and 3) identify how best to give voice to the presence of silenced past peoples. Ultimately, through archeological investigation and ethnographic interview, we plan to offer insight into contemporary local and national conversations on race, identity, and heritage.

Excavation of Egypt's first industrial-scale brewery, located at the ancient site of Abydos.

This proposal seeks support for a program of archaeological field research to investigate Egypt's first industrial-scale brewery, located at the site of Abydos, and whether it was contemporary with and functionally a part of the broad pattern of early royal activity at the site. Abydos was the ancestral home of Egypt's first kings, who established its first great royal necropolis at the site. Each of these kings also built a kind of monumental funerary temple called a "cultic enclosure" at some distance from the their tombs. Present evidence indicates the large-scale use of beer in the rituals conducted in some of these enclosures. Analysis of residues from both the brewery and deposits of offering pottery from the enclosures will test the possible association. The brewery itself represents an opportunity to understand not only the facility itself, but also how production on such a scale was organized and how it may have been integrated into other royal activity at the site.

Ethnographic interviews and participant observation leading to publications and presentations on how music has constructed identity among the multiple ethnic communities living in Pueblo, Colorado. (30 months)

Soundscapes of the People: A Musical Ethnography of Pueblo, Colorado” identifies music as an active force in identity formation and cultural resilience. This endeavor to explore the rich musical heritage of Pueblo will result in the first comprehensive study of the city’s musical culture. In exploring the protagonism of music in Puebloan identity, we will reveal music’s role as a means of social navigation through major 20th-21st century issues of industrialization, migration, urbanization, and the impacts of late capitalism. In doing so, we center the American West—a region long neglected in American music studies—in the history and experience of American music and the cultures and identities that it expresses and produces. Collaboration with local stakeholders will inform our gathering of ethnographic data and our creation of a free and accessible digital archive of interviews. This research will result in multiple publications and presentations for academic and general audiences.

Ethnographic interviews and participant observation leading to a book on how communities and insurance companies in Bermuda assign value and understand risk caused by changing sea levels and climate change. (26 months)

My research examines how insurance shapes the natural and built environments of Bermuda. I propose an ethnographic study of the ways narratives, figures, and images of climate change become effective tools of place-making for the insurance industry. Phase I analyzes work operations at the firm RenaissanceRe. As the industry’s innovator in risk modeling, I use the firm as a case study to examine the effects of climate change predictions on corporate decision-making related to market expansion. Phase II analyzes local communities’ social perceptions of insurance products and their attempts to negotiate daily life around hurricanes and climate risks. In addition, this project seeks to contribute to Bermudian public science forums, museum collections, and art publications. In doing so, this project drives new research in the humanities by bridging ecocriticism with the sociocultural history of risk while contributing a global South perspective on corporate computing practices.

Archaeological and ethnographic research at Eastern Cemetery in Louisville, KY, resulting in procedural guidance for historic cemeteries and traditional scholarly outputs (24 months).

In this research we examine how the current abandonment and past over-burying of Eastern Cemetery in Louisville, KY, compounds existing modes of inequality and invisibility for the living through layers of necroviolence enacted upon the dead. We propose to systematically document Eastern’s landscape and the extent of necroviolence incurred on the site and in the community through the use of surface (total station and LiDAR) and subsurface (GPR) survey and ethnography. It is the goal of this project to generate new methodological and humanistic knowledge that will contribute not only to future research and preservation at Eastern Cemetery but to other neglected historic cemetery sites across the U.S.

Archaeological investigations of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Jebel Barkal in northern Sudan, one of the most important urban centers of the ancient kingdom of Kush. (24 months)

The project proposed here would investigate the diversity of identity and activities across Jebel Barkal (northern Sudan), one of the major urban centers of ancient Kush (ca. 800 BCE – 300 CE) and also a UNESCO World Heritage site. Over two field seasons, it would excavate six 20 x 20 m horizontal exposures, commensurate with the size of the site. It would contribute significantly to archaeology in the Nile Valley, where urban centers have rarely been investigated by techniques of comparative archaeology, and would also engage Sudanese colleagues as team members in discussions about and training in these methods. It would also be an important part of broader efforts to engage with the community around the site.

How do we make sense of who we are and what our purpose is as we confront the challenges of the Anthropocene? This question is central not just to the environmental humanities, but also to the people living them on the ground. This project aims to learn how residents of the Puerto Rican archipelago’s southwest experience, understand, and reframe their sense of meaning in response to unusual geologic encounters with the Earth that disrupt familiar spatio-temporal rhythms and scales. We apply anthropologically-grounded and experimental ethnography to identify and elevate humanistic dimensions of this region, a site of overlooked geological, cultural, and historical regional and hemispheric significance. The experiences and stories of 15 interlocutors who explore, study, and conserve coastal karst and how they support their local communities is central to this work. In collaboration with two grassroots organizations, we will develop bilingual geoheritage routes and online StoryMaps.

Archeological excavation investigating the English settlement of Bermuda by the Virginia Company in the 17th century. (24 months)  

Bermuda, Virginia's sister settlement, is Great Britain’s oldest colony yet its early history has never been investigated archaeologically. This multidisciplinary project will situate Bermuda within broader archaeological studies of early Anglo-Atlantic expansion by investigating three 1610s sites where processes of Americanization, ethnogenesis, and environmental adaptation began. It builds on field research started in 2010 that has identified 26 sites spanning 410 years. Our work investigates how Bermuda’s settlers largely succeeded where most comparative Anglo-Atlantic colonial sites struggled in England’s earliest pre-1635 phase of global expansion. By investigating fundamentally humanistic dynamics inherent to colonization across time and space, our project will generate new multi-scalar knowledge about interrelated processes involved in transforming England’s first settlers into a culturally distinctive new American people.

Archaeological and ethnographic research investigating pre-Columbian flood management features, and how small-scale Peruvian farmers today use these relic landscapes, especially during severe floods associated with El Niño years. (36 months) 

Climate change is placing more communities in the direct paths of natural hazards, but archaeological landscapes may be able to help mitigate these risks. The farming communities of the north coast of Peru are periodically impacted by destructive floods, known as El Niño events. In response to inundated crops, some smallholder farmers have been observed moving into the dry, marginal drainages outside of the irrigated valley floor to set up temporary fields. However, these are not empty landscapes: prehispanic forms of floodwater management infrastructure traverse these drainages. This Project will investigate how archaeological dams, diversion canals, and reservoirs create refugia on the landscape during flood events and how local farmers from nearby towns come to know how to utilize such landscapes as a form of climate resilience. An imminent El Niño season in spring 2024, provides the rare opportunity to directly observe both landscape and smallholder responses to these flood events.

Ethnographic interviews, focus groups, and participant-observation of community-based humanitarian groups helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland (36 months)

The ongoing reception and integration of Ukrainians into Polish society presents a pivotal case study of the motivations, practices, and limitations of grassroots humanitarianism. This project will use ethnography, textual analysis, and experiential and embodied learning to advance our understanding of the causes, effects, and meanings of humanitarianism in Poland.