Imagining Indigenous and Archaeological Futures: Building Capacity with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde

Abstract

Collaborative archaeological research with indigenous communities, in addition to fostering culturally specific, community-centred research programmes, also encourages meaningful shifts in archaeological research on the ground. Field Methods in Indigenous Archaeology (FMIA), a community-based research partnership between the University of Washington and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, highlights these dual possibilities. The project seeks to strengthen the tribe’s capacity to care for cultural resources, to recover histories of survivance on the Grand Ronde Reservation, and to develop a low-impact, Grand Ronde archaeological methodology. These goals are realized through a summer field school, which joins comprehensive field instruction with overviews of tribal historic preservation and engagement with the Grand Ronde community. FMIA encapsulates the ethical imperative to work with, for, and by indigenous communities in archaeological research and the opportunities such work brings in transforming archaeological method, theory, and practice.