I agree, George's article is great.
Linda Derry has done some fascinating work with the "outdoors" community
around her site, which was critical in her work. I hope you don't mind,
Linda, but here is a citation to your recent paper about this:
Derry, Linda. 2011. The Dynamics of Inclusion in Public Archaeology: Why do
people become involved? Answers from Alabama's Black Belt Region. In
Dynamics of Inclusion in Public Archaeology, a special issue of
Archaeologies, edited by Christopher N. Matthews, Carol McDavid and Patrice
L. Jeppson.
Sorry for shameless self promotion-- there are some other great papers in
the issue too that address the idea of "community"! But in terms of what you
were asking for, Linda's paper does include a short definition:
"I use the word 'community' merely to describe a group of people who have
something in common and who are actively engaged with each other in a benign
fashion".
She cites Ann Gold, and that citation is:
Gold, Ann Grodzins. 2005. Conceptualizing Community: Anthropological
Reflections, a Background Paper. The Collaborative Initiative for Research
Ethics in Environmental Health, Syracuse University. Electronic document:
http://www.brown.edu/research/research-ethics/sites/brown.edu.research.research-ethics/files/uploads/Conceptualizing%20Community%20-%20Gold.pdf
For what it's worth, I have a few other comments in response to Mike's
question....sorry in advance for the ramble! Feel free to delete now!
I don't think one can really define community up-front. It depends too much
on context, and one has to do "feet on the ground" type of research to even
begin to understand what any given locale or context defines as "community".
That's why oral, ethnographic, participatory, and other sorts of
collaborative work are so important when doing any kind of contextual or
social archaeology (e.g., what Linda has been doing for years).
Community can be "local folks" in the sense we usually refer to it, but it
can also be various interest groups, and people can be in multiple
communities at one time. It can also be "us", that is, archaeologists -- we
too are a "community".
With respect to enslaved populations, with respect to the Jordan Plantation
community work, I remember that one particularly important idea came out of
the oral history work that Cheryl Wright did in the mid-1990s. In the
process of trying to find people to interview, she learned that when "we"
(meaning the archaeologists) talked about the "descendant community of the
Jordan Plantation", it did not mean anything positive to the descendants of
those who were enslaved there. Quite the contrary in fact. THEY defined
"community" as their church communities -- the churches they founded and
built after enslavement. As I recall, one person put it succinctly -- "why
should I identify with the place where my ancestors were slaves?". So we
started to define "descendant community" in the larger sense, and to work
with the church communities and other community groups. Because the local
African American church congregations included at least some Jordan site
descendants, we were reaching them, just in a more indirect way. As time
went on, we did find some folks who were comfortable talking about their
family affiliations to the Jordan place.
Anyway, because of all this, it really got to be a problem every time a
reporter would say "Can't I talk to a REAL descendant?". This happened all
the time. It made me think of "Ishi" -- the Yahi Indian that Alfred Kroeber
studied. Cringe.
Which is to say that it's a fine line to walk -- to seek descendant
input/conversation in a way that doesn't fetishize, and instead to be
sensitive to the web of associations that can mean "community" in any given
context. We didn't always do it right, and what we encountered might not
apply to someplace else. I just pass that along as our experience. I think
Ken Brown would agree, if asked. He also encountered some surprising (to us,
at the time) responses to the idea of being a member of the "descendant
community" of an enslaved population.
Sorry if this was too long, and it's probably way more than you wanted! But
it's something I've been thinking about a lot over the years. And it's just
my two pence worth -- I'm sure there are other perspectives. The African
Burial Ground report also has some good stuff in it too about this.
Carol
******************************************
Carol McDavid, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Community Archaeology Research Institute, Inc. (CARI)
Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Houston
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Rice University
1638 Branard
Houston, TX 77006
www.publicarchaeology.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Hunter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: Question on community
George's article should be required reading for everyone with the slightest
interest in Historical Archaeology...it is one of the defining statements of
the relationship that artifacts have with living people.
-----Original Message-----
From: George Miller <[log in to unmask]>
To: HISTARCH <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Fri, Apr 20, 2012 10:35 pm
Subject: Re: Question on community
Mike,
Recovery of an hotelware bowl from the Tabb's Purchase in St. Mary's
City, lead to an oral history that showed an extension of community of St.
Mary's County to Washington D.C. See:
George L. Miller
1986 Ode to a Lunch Bowl: The Atlantic Lunch as an interface between St.
Mary's County, Md. and Washington, D.C. *Northeast Historical
Archaeology*Vol 13:2-8.
Peace,
George L. Miller
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 7:26 PM, mike strutt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Histarchers,
>
> So what is your favorite anthropological definition of community (a
> citation of the originator would be appreciated)? What is your definition
> of community among an enslaved population? Would it be different from the
> above, or different from say an immigrant group living in a new country?
> Ideas as well as definitions welcome. Looking for ways community is
> defined
> in terms of who is part of it, or not. . .
>
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