Alternatives to interpretive binaries in archaeologies of migration

This issue critically considers the binary assumptions archaeologists typically rely on when examining materials and landscapes of migrant and diaspora communities. These assumptions typically involve the search for either migrant associated material culture versus local/host material culture ALSO the search for change versus continuity within migrant associated material cultures. While these ways of approaching migration contexts have long been critiqued in archaeology as both factually inaccurate and associated with political bigotry, they have remained persistent in practice. Speaking across the seven case studies presented in this issue, we consider why this is the case. Why is it so challenging to ‘see’ migration archaeologically without employing categorical thinking related to identity and identity construction? Each contributor to this issue highlights the contextual challenges different migrant groups faced and provides a different answer and solution to how to interpret coping strategies through the material record. Some seek to de-center identity categories as the theoretical entry-point of all archaeological considerations of migration. Others suggest that identity is central to how communities see themselves, but attempt to highlight the ways in which understandings of these categories are multifaceted, ever-in-flux, contended, and/or situated within complex ecological and material worlds. Ultimately, as a collection, we feel that these case studies illustrate the great irony of migration contexts: migration reveals spacio-cultural associations as malleable, while at the same time foregrounding the political import and impact of spaciocultural associations. As such, archaeologists working in contexts of migration must strive to challenge the perceived fixity of ethnoregional categories and cultural territories, while simultaneously illustrating the extent to which understandings of such categories and territories shape the wellbeing and goals of people-on-the-move.