Work

Slow (Bio)archaeology: Recovering Stories of Irish Immigrant Lives in the Huntington Anatomical Collection

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: I consider the power of “slow archaeology” in a study of the Huntington Anatomical Collection, focusing on Irish immigrants who lived and worked in New York City over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries. I argue that normative bioarchaeological categories and methods cannot fully account for the varied life histories of persons in the collection. Instead, I turn to the tenets of slow archaeology to move between scales of analysis and material traces. With a slow approach, embodied experiences of labor are highlighted and discourses about laborers are challenged. A slow approach seeks to recover the lived experiences of individuals exploited in life and made anonymous in death and is one potential way toward a more ethical bioarchaeology.

Source: Historical Archaeology

DOI: 10.1007/s41636-024-00520-9

Author: Alanna L. Warner-Smith

Institution: American University

Language: English

Topic: Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies

Subfield: Anthropology

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,290

Funders: School for Advanced Research, Syracuse University