Contemporary Archaeologist
Sometimes, I find myself in situations and wonder how on Earth I got there. This was the case recently as I watched shooting stars arc across the clear desert skies above the Amerind Foundation, near Dragoon, Arizona, USA. A chance meeting at the annual conference of the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) had led to …
Continue reading "Studying Human Migration in Long-Term Perspective (CfAS workshop), Arizona, 2019"
On the first day of my MA Historical Archaeology (University of Bristol, 2003/4), I started reading a gem of a book called 'In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life', by James Deetz (1930-2000). It honestly changed how I saw the world. While we might now see a problem with the use of …
Continue reading "Winner of the Society of Historical Archaeology’s 2019 James Deetz Book Award"
I was both delighted and astonished to be awarded a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship. My project is called 'Migrant Materialities'. The research focuses on the material culture - that is, the objects, visual culture, all manner of physical materials - of contemporary forced and undocumented migration in Europe. I am particularly keen to document what …
Continue reading "Awarded British Academy postdoctoral fellowship, ‘Migrant Materialities’"
Click the link below to access a free to download PDF archaeology-the-public-and-the-recent-past_kiddey
I am really sorry not to be at the Association of Critical Heritage Studies third annual conference which is taking place in Montreal today. As I couldn't make it in person, I submitted my paper, “Home is the streets”: collaborative cultural heritage work with contemporary homeless people via this short movie See here for more …
Journeys in the City: homeless archaeologists or archaeologies of homelessness - open access PDF
This year I was happy to attend the Society for Historical Archaeology's annual conference in Washington D.C., having been invited to give a paper at a session called 'Historical and Contemporary Archaeologies of the City: opportunities and challenges', organised by two of Historical Archaeology's brilliant voices, Krysta Ryzewski and Laura McAtackney. See the conference programme …
I count myself among a social group that is rapidly rising across the world. We are a nervous bunch who suffer different combinations of anxiety, stress and disillusionment, under-employment and poverty. We are Post-PhDs. This blog post will explore some thoughts on the wider social usefulness of PhD education and how it might be further …
It is August and we are in Torquay, Devon. We are on a family outing and it’s pouring with rain as we make the splashy dash from the car park to the visitor centre entrance of Kents Cavern (www.kents-cavern.co.uk). Having paid for our tickets at the desk, we wait around until we hear over the …
“Contemporary Archaeology! Isn’t that an oxymoron?” This is the most familiar response when I tell people that I am an archaeologist who specialises in using established archaeological methodologies to investigate the contemporary world. Archaeology began as a leisure pursuit of wealthy men of European descent (Johnson 2007) and it has always involved a good deal …
