Kacey C. Grauer, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford Archaeology Center

Stanford University

Abstract:

Our current world is fraught by so many environmental injustices that it may seem unequitable access to basic environmental needs is an inevitable part of human existence. However, present day inequalities are the results of specific historical sociopolitical processes. In this talk, I advocate for archaeology’s ability to contribute to environmental justice efforts by illuminating these processes and demonstrating injustices are not inevitable. I present my recent, ongoing, and future research on the politics of water at the Maya site of Aventura in northeastern Belize. I draw on data from pedestrian survey, GIS mapping, household excavations, archaeobotanical analysis, and oral histories to trace how access to both the biophysical and metaphysical aspects of water changed throughout Aventura’s long history. In the Classic Period, members of elite and regular households alike were able to access water near their homes. The amount of water on the landscape has significantly declined through time, and I argue that colonial ontologies that drive a wedge in between nature and culture are in part responsible for recent drying episodes. I end with a discussion of my new project, which seeks to connect politics of water in ancient Maya pasts with lived experiences in the present through explorations of more recent time periods alongside community collaborators. With its ability to illuminate ways of relating to the environment outside of capitalist and colonial contexts, archaeology is a powerful tool that can inspire alternate possibilities for the future. This cannot be done without meaningful engagement with stakeholder communities.

Bio:

Kacey Grauer is an anthropological archaeologist who studies human-environment relationships using archaeobotanical analysis, household excavations, and landscape analysis. She is the lab manager of Dr. Li Liu’s Archaeological Science Lab. Prior to Stanford, she was a lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Northwestern University, where she earned her PhD in June 2021.

Kacey specializes in the ancient Maya area and has been a senior staff member of the Aventura Archaeology Project (AAP) in northern Belize since 2015. Her research has compared commoner and elite access to water during the height of drought at the city of Aventura, where she found that less restricted access to water allowed people of all economic classes to thrive amidst environmental crisis. Her current and ongoing research addresses differential access to food during drought using phytolith and starch grain analyses. Kacey centers Indigenous ontologies in her research and strives to connect archaeology to present-day environmental justice concerns. In addition to archaeological research, she has co-organized community engagement events with Dr. Cynthia Robin of Northwestern University, AAP staff members, and the National Institute of Culture and History in Belize.

She has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the National Geographic Society, and has recently been published in the Journal of Social Archaeology and the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. Her publications can be found on her Academia.edu page.