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Heritage, Neighborhoods and Cosmopolitan Sensibilities: Poly-Communal Archaeology in Deerfield, Massachusetts Siobhan M

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Heritage, Neighborhoods and Cosmopolitan Sensibilities: Poly-Communal Archaeology in Deerfield, Massachusetts Siobhan M Present Pasts Vol. 3, 2011, 26-34 doi: 10.5334/pp.42 Heritage, Neighborhoods and Cosmopolitan Sensibilities: Poly-Communal Archaeology in Deerfield, Massachusetts Siobhan M. Hart* Cosmopolitan sensibilities acknowledging mutual obligations and human interconnectedness can orient people navigating the complexities of neighborhood and other forms of community-based archaeology. I suggest that practice aimed at engaging in ethical heritage work in neighborhoods can benefit from fostering cosmopolitan values among participants and stakeholders. I outline a model for “poly-communal archaeology,” an approach that takes a cosmopolitan stance and engag- es multiple stakeholders in neighborhood archaeology and heritage work. I then reflect on a case study of heritage work that employs such an approach in the neighborhood of “Old Deerfield” in western Massachusetts, U.S.A. In this case, a cosmopolitan sensibility is deployed to restructure the social relations that underpin heritage work. Defining what is valued as “heritage” is fraught with in- think about, experience, and otherwise deploy the past. equities of social and political power. Though often per- The important question here is how, and by whom, are ceived as “experts” on the past, archaeologists are just one determinations made regarding what is valued about of many stakeholders with interests in how pasts are used the past (see collection of essays in de la Torre, 2005 and in the present. Twenty-first century archaeologists face Mathers et al., 2005)? In other words, how is the work of the challenge of engaging in discourses and actions with heritage carried out, who participates, and what does it diverse individuals and communities about the meaning, change in the present? value, and treatment of heritage sites and interpretation. In this essay, I suggest that cosmopolitan values - refer- As a result, archaeologists are increasingly working to re- ring to a sense of interrelatedness with and responsibili- orient and restructure social relations by engaging multi- ties to others - can be used to orient participants navigat- ple stakeholder groups in heritage work, especially those ing the complexities of “neighborhood” and other forms of that have been previously left out of the process. This has community-based archaeology when multiple communi- resulted in the collaborative study of historical contexts ties and stakeholders are involved. I decouple “community” and processes with diverse stakeholders engaging in herit- from geography, and use “neighborhood” to refer to shared age work rooted in particular places. space and landscapes that root present day people. Com- Heritage, used here in the broad sense to mean that munities form around shared interests, but they do not which is identified as valuable and significant about the always share the spatial nearness that is a defining aspect past to meet the needs of contemporary people (Carman, of a neighborhood (as it refers to both people and places). 2005; Graham et al., 2000; Smith, 2006), is actively con- While communities can transcend both space and time (for structed and engaged in the present. As such, it comprises example, see Anderson, 1991: 9; Crooke, 2007; Smith and “work,” meaning activity, effort, and labor on the part of Waterton, 2009), neighborhoods attach people to places people (Smith, 2006: 13). Based on individual and collec- and localities. Neighborhoods are not bounded isolates, but tive values and social norms, people give some objects and rather multidimensional nodes in complex social networks. places significance over others, elevating them to “herit- The concept of neighborhood paired with an archaeologi- age” and imbuing them with new meaning. The values cal perspective allows us to consider contemporary social, and ethics of archaeologists and other practitioners in political, and economic configurations, while also consid- heritage disciplines (e.g., art history, architecture, history, ering such configurations through time. However, archae- museology) play a central role in this process. Archaeol- ology rooted in neighborhoods necessitates cosmopolitan ogy, another kind of “work,” is a physical and social inter- values, especially in contexts where there are multiple com- vention that shapes, and is shaped by, heritage values. It munities with interests and stakes in heritage. is a tool for producing material heritage and provides a I begin by outlining the cosmopolitan ideas that inter- means of accessing media (e.g., objects, features, sites, sect with neighborhood archaeology as a form of com- landscapes) through which people remember, organize, munity-based practice. Next, I offer a critique of three types of projects representing the status quo of global community-based archaeology and suggest that practice * Binghamton University Hart: Heritage, Neighborhoods and Cosmopolitan Sensibilities 27 aimed at engaging in ethical heritage work in neighbor- nity-based and neighborhood projects where the mean- hoods can benefit from incorporating and developing cos- ing and value of heritage is conceived of in ways that may mopolitan values among participants and stakeholders. I conflict with those of neighbors, nations, or institutions. sketch out a model for “poly-communal archaeology,” an Despite the fact that community-based heritage work approach that takes a cosmopolitan stance and engages rooted in neighborhoods often encompasses the values multiple stakeholders in neighborhood archaeology and of mutual responsibility and obligation among partici- heritage work. I then reflect on a case study of heritage pants (including archaeologists), it also has the potential work that employs such an approach from the New Eng- to reinforce or ignore structural inequalities and re-in- land region of northeastern U.S.A. The neighborhood of scribe boundaries that prevent non-local or marginalized “Old Deerfield” in western Massachusetts is a place where groups from participating in heritage work. In this vein, the colonial past is remembered daily by museum visitors, González-Ruibal (2009) finds flaw with a treatment of cos- residents, and scholars, and heritage work has significant mopolitanism that ignores structural inequalities and as- social and political impacts on Native peoples today, but sumes that all people have equal access to the resources only recently have Native Americans and other marginal- and power necessary to participate in heritage work. He ized groups been actively engaged in the work of heritage. identifies two kinds of cosmopolitans: (1) powerful; and In this case a cosmopolitan sensibility is deployed to re- (2) disempowered, stating that “it is easy to be cosmopoli- structure the social relations that underpin heritage work. tan when power is on one’s side” (González-Ruibal, 2009: 117). He argues for a cosmopolitanism that confronts the Rooting Cosmopolitanism in Neighborhoods structural inequalities, long-term processes of oppres- In the introduction to Cosmopolitan Archaeologies sion and trauma of Western colonialism and imperialism. (Meskell, 2009a), Lynn Meskell (2009b) describes cosmo- González-Ruibal’s point is relevant to this discussion of politanism as a range of philosophical positions grounded neighborhood heritage projects because neighborhoods in Western intellectual traditions. At its most basic, cosmo- are multi-scalar, multidimensional, and constitute con- politanism is a suite of sentiments and values that have to texts where there may be substantial power differences, do with a sense of “…our obligations to others (or theirs especially when they are considered as part of social net- to us)…” (Appiah, 2006: xv). Cosmopolitans share the core works that transcend time and space. For example, public belief that we are all citizens of the world who have re- historian David Glassberg (2001: 148-157) describes herit- sponsibilities to others. As applied to archaeology and age work aimed at defining town character in an urban heritage, cosmopolitan values extend our obligations to neighborhood in Springfield, Massachusetts, where there people across time and space (Meskell, 2009b: 1): “Doing are African American, Latino, and Euroamerican resident cosmopolitan archaeology ought to mean that we take for constituencies with varying amounts of social, political, granted that others matter” (González-Ruibal, 2009: 114). and economic power. Participants in heritage work from Meskell (2009b: 2) notes that cosmopolitanism may these ethnic communities related different conceptions of not provide a ready-made set of solutions for the prob- place and history in the McKnight district of Springfield, lems facing archaeologists in the twenty-first century, but as did older and younger residents across these groups. it does provide a way to view the multi-sited and multi- Though a single neighborhood, there is no single com- scalar engagements of which all participants in herit- munity or interest group in this case, but rather multiple age work are a part. In contrast to the limitations and groups with varying amounts of power contributing to problems with cosmopolitanism at a global scale where discourses and the work of valuing and mobilizing the “world heritage” is implied to be a universal “good” and past in the present. common values are assumed (Meskell, 2009b: 5), notions of “rooted cosmopolitanism” are better suited to heritage Limitations of Community-Based Practice work in neighborhood contexts. Rooted cosmopolitanism The number of recent publications dedicated to
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