A call to archaeologists and EAA members to think and act now
The brutal murder of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis, United States on May 25th 2020 triggered powerful reactions from people around the world. The violent death of George Floyd, a black American, reminds us that the legacies of colonialism, slavery and racism are deeply ingrained in modern institutions. Structural racism is not only a problem in the United States and the Americas. Black Europeans and immigrants are also subject to discrimination and violence on a daily basis, sometimes even death at the hands of institutions that are mandated to protect us all. The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Europe has enforced a deadly line along the Mediterranean and its eastern borders, undermining the core of our democratic values. We stand in solidarity with all those who suffer from racism and its consequences.
As archaeologists, we spend our lives studying past and present societies through the material culture they produced and left behind. The material record tells us that there is only one humanity, and that humanity has been always extraordinarily diverse in its forms of cultural expression and social organization. Despite the lack of scientific grounds for racial divisions, race is nevertheless an ideological category that has powerfully shaped and continues to shape human experiences. Given this, the racialization of human behavior needs to be taken into account and critically examined. Archaeologists document and analyze the material circumstances in which racism and the idea of race emerged, making sense of its contemporary legacies.
We acknowledge that European archaeology, too, benefited from and contributed to modern forms of discrimination and structural violence. Recent history shows that archaeologists established unequal and exploitative relationships with communities that lived in regions where they worked, contributing to their disenfranchisement. Archaeologists also wrote and produced materials with the intention of supporting and encouraging further divisions across ethnic, national, and religious lines in Europe and elsewhere. In the spirit of the EAA 2019 Bern Statement on Archaeology and the Future of Democracy, we call not only the members of the EAA but all archaeologists, to work together to heal the divides that continue to haunt us today.
For these reasons, we believe that it is not enough to only show support and solidarity towards those who continue to suffer from discrimination and violence. Current archaeological practice does not always account for the full social diversity of contemporary Europe. Archaeologists must encourage the inclusion of underrepresented groups in the discipline. We should also continue to use the tools provided by archaeology to educate our fellow Europeans towards diversity, inclusion, and democratic values. It can be done individually or in our organizations by changing study curricula, reexamining research questions, diversifying historical narratives, and supporting networks of care for our students and colleagues. We all need this for the benefit of better, peaceful, and more equal societies.
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