LUCY GILL (In person at SAC)
University of California, Berkeley

Abstract
Because of its central concern for "context," archaeology both depends on and stands to enhance place-based knowledge, an integral part of how humans have structured relations with our environments throughout our species' history. Today, this knowledge is often implicated in struggles for Indigenous sovereignty and ecological conservation and simultaneously threatened by displacement and development, a state of affairs that archaeologists and stakeholder communities—heirs to long legacies of place-based knowledge—often confront in the course of collaborative projects. Through active collaboration during all phases of the research process (research design, data collection, data analysis, and data production), archaeologists can assist communities in eliciting and safeguarding their knowledge for future generations. Informed by my ongoing collaboration with Emberá communities in the Darién Province of Panama and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan in the East Bay, I will consider here the forms that place-based knowledge may take in an archaeological context, as well as various approaches to its study. This talk will make particular reference to my reconceptualization of archaeological survey as participatory mapping and its capacity for facilitating contemporary landscape stewardship in support of land claim cases and repatriation. I will also address the importance of literacy in cultural heritage law and the challenges inherent in projects that involve various agencies, alongside community partners.

Bio
Lucy’s research sits at the intersection of anthropological archaeology and historical ecology, employing community-based participatory research practices as the foundation for empirically rigorous data collection and theoretical formulation. She co-directs Darién Profundo, a collaborative project based in eastern Panama, which employs community mapping, paleoecology, and ethnography, in addition to archaeological field and laboratory methods, to document the deep local history of Darién Province. These investigations have implications for ecological conservation and Indigenous sovereignty within the area, and her work develops strategies for collaboration with various stakeholder communities, at all phases of the research process.

She is also collaborating with the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, on whose ancestral lands UC Berkeley sits, to develop noninvasive archaeological methods that can document and protect sacred ancestral sites. She has previously worked in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and elsewhere in the United States. In the classroom, Lucy works with K-12 teachers and other university educators to improve multicultural heritage literacy in the United States.