Heritage practice remains shaped by hierarchical knowledge models that privilege expert authority and marginalise community epistemologies. This project seeks to explore how such structures can be reconfigured into more equitable, collaborative forms of knowledge-making.
Principal Investigatorsa:
Professor Siân Halcrow, Archaeologysian.e.halcrow@durham.ac.uk
Dr Rennan Lemos, Archaeologyrennan.lemos@durham.ac.uk
Term:
tbc
Drawing on concepts of relationality and intra-action, the project centres on the development of an initial workshop that brings together academics to co-produce a larger WennerGren grant application. This application will fund further workshops and initiatives that bring together Indigenous scholars, community members, and academics to explore how heritage research can be conducted horizontally.
Heritage practice continues to be structured by hierarchical models of knowledge production that prioritise expert-led interpretation and top-down dissemination. These approaches often marginalise community knowledge systems and limit meaningful social impact, despite sustained efforts to improve engagement. As a result, epistemological frameworks are frequently positioned as oppositional, with academic knowledge on one side and Indigenous and community perspectives on the other. This project seeks to explore how such structures can be reconfigured into more equitable, collaborative forms of knowledge-making.
By “flipping” top-down models, the project fosters reciprocal exchange, ethical accountability, and social impact. The primary research activity is the development of an initial collaborative workshop led by prominent Indigenous scholar Professor Sonya Atalay (Anishinabe-Ojibwe, University of Massachusetts Amherst). The workshop will establish the intellectual and practical foundations for a larger grant proposal designed to convene Indigenous leaders, activists, heritage scholars, and community members in a “thinking space” that fosters open, horizontal dialogue. Within this environment, participants will share their perspectives on heritage and articulate what is meaningful for their communities and for a just and sustainable future. In addition to the first workshop, Professor Atalay will deliver a seminar on activism and heritage. In addition to a grant application, outputs from the workshop will include a series of short, publicly accessible videos exploring the intersections of archaeology and activism, as well as a reflexive piece for publication.
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