Thread on Why Representation Matters in Archaeology. No matter how good a mentor or colleague I have been, no matter how queer, no matter how inclusive I think I’ve been, I will never be able to foster fully safe spaces because I am white. #Archaeology #crmarch #anthrotwitter https://twitter.com/iamscicomm/status/1281592484469104641

I’ve always believed that representation matters. But I didn’t actually get it in any visceral way until @shankari33, my wife, took over a Mesoamerica. Archaeology class that I usually taught at my institution because I had to go on medical leave.

The class usually has a large number of Latin American and Latino studies (LALS) students. We aimed for it to be taken by students in other departments and I did my best to make it intelligible across disciplines.

One day toward the end of the quarter my wife (who is a woc) mentioned that she had several LALS BIPOC students mention things like “I never realized that their were WOC archaeologists.”

They said they never thought archaeology was for them because they never saw someone who looked like them. I remember hearing this and my first reaction was wondering where had I gone wrong in teaching and mentoring? But then I realized this wasn’t about me.

This wasn’t because I had done anything wrong. But my presence as a white archaeologist teaching about indigenous people of Latin America reaffirmed the colonial legacy of anthropology that white people were the arbiters of non-white culture and history.

This doesn’t mean I should give up teaching or that I can’t be an effective accomplice. Systemic racism has actively excluded and limited people’s access and places like higher education continue to be hostile terrains to BIPOC.

And the white moderates and liberals who tend to fill its halls are as Dr. King says “more devoted to “order” than to justice” and as such consistently fail BIPOC. So my non-black face, no matter what I say or do, may always be suspect.

And the fact that I didn’t get this at a visceral level shows how white supremacy works. I’m queer and know the joy and relative comfort I felt when I met my first openly queer archaeologist. But because I’m white I didn’t make that connection around race.

So yeah. Representation matters for so many reasons. This is just one.