Editorial

Abstract

Self-reflection is always a key aspect of community archaeology research and practice; as well as thinking about our many possible ‘publics’, it is important to situate ourselves. This is true whether we are archaeologists, researchers from other disciplines, cultural heritage managers or community participants such as students or volunteers. In this latest issue of JCAH, our contributors are particularly reflexive of their roles, and the lessons they have learned from their work. In the first article of this issue, Claudia Näser (University College London, UK) and Gemma Tully (University of Cambridge, UK) document their efforts to engage locals in collaborative archaeology approaches as part of the Mograt Island Collaborative Project in Sudan. Situating their work in the post-colonial context and acknowledging their own statuses as foreign academics, they provide a thought-provoking and frank discussion of both the successes and challenges faced in their work so far. Catherine Mills, Ian Simpson (both University of Stirling, UK) and Jennifer Geller (Central High School, Providence, USA) provide an equally upfront account of their work in another context: that of setting up a heritage outreach programme for a number of schools in the Devon Valley in central Scotland. Here they divulge the lessons that they learned along the way. As well as the practical aspects to planning and implementation that they share, they offer instructive insight to us all about the challenges of moving out of one’s comfort zone – in this case as academics taking a first step into using environmental history and industrial heritage to engage with an audience that was completely new to them. In Zimbabwe, Njabulo Chipangura (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) embarked on research that was partially archaeological and partially ethnographic. In the Mutanda Site in eastern Zimbabwe he investigated artisanal and small-scale goldmining in the past and present. With decolonizing the discipline in mind, Chipangura worked closely with local Indigenous gold miners, identifying their process as Indigenous artisanal mining, and with this paper sheds new light on the potential of multivocal approaches for contributing richly to archaeological knowledge. Also in the continent of Africa, Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann (Hampshire College, Amherst, USA) takes an even more personal approach to her research around Christiansborg Castle in Ghana, shedding light on the legacy for many local people of the Danish colonial era. These local people include Engmann herself, and her research led to her own adoption of the term ‘autoarchaeology’ as a way of articulating her process and position in relation to the project. Her paper documents this development and explains her usage of this term. A final shorter paper from Christopher Matthews (Montclair State University, USA) represents his reflections on community archaeology in relation to social justice issues, again drawing upon personal experiences. Inspired by the theoretical framework of Gilles Deleuze’s idea of transcendental empiricism, Matthews employs the case study of the Native American-African American mixed heritage community of Setauket, New York, to highlight the complexities of heritage, identity and understanding that he discusses. The issue also features two review pieces. Della Scott-Ireton provides an insightful review of Bridging the gap in maritime archaeology: working with professional and public communities, edited by Katy Bell. Scott-Ireton notes that although the majority of the case studies in the edited volume come from the UK, the messages of the book about collaboration are relevant anywhere in the world. Elizabeth Reetz provides a spirited event review, of ‘Archaeology education: Building a research base’, which was a symposium held at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Albuquerque, USA, in April 2019. Although Reetz herself notes that these sessions are often a case of ‘preaching