Archaeology for stakeholder communities
Engagement and collaboration
Meaningful engagement and collaboration with local, Indigenous, and descendent communities is essential to ethical archaeological practice.
Outreach
I am the co-founder of the Archaeology Day event in San Joaquín. Archaeology Day is an annual event established in 2015 by the Aventura Archaeology Project in collaboration with the National Institute of Culture and History. This community event consists of exhibits and activities designed for adults and children to learn more about ongoing research at Aventura, the history of the Maya, and the practice of archaeology more broadly.
As part of the Aventura Archaeology Project, I also give site tours to local community members. One of our returning groups is a youth summer camp organized through the San Joaquín Roman Catholic Church. We have an open door policy on our project: anyone who is interested in the work we do is welcome to come visit during the work day!
Children at Archaeology Day.
Youth camp attendees on a site tour of Aventura standing on top of the tallest temple.
Collaborations
Don Aban giving US students a site tour of this historic village where he was born.
Collaboration with local community members is central to my work in northern Belize. Questions from community members have motivated the New River Island Project, particularly a local NPO To’one Masehualoon, which means “we are Maya” in Yucatec Mayan. To’one Masehualoon members have familial connections to the history of settlement on the New River island and have a vested interest in the more recent past of the region.
I am also collaborating with a community elder, Don Ramón Aban, to co-author a paper on the environmental history of Aventura. I am committed to elevating local expert knowledge and being explicit about the influences that local community members have had on my own thinking about archaeology in northern Belize.