Compassion and care in an age of division

The current moment

As 2023 draws to a close, I am delighted to be able to present a new issue of the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage. This year has been a difficult one, including for the journal itself. But our difficulties merely echoed the very challenging year that so many individuals and communities around the globe have been (and are still) experiencing. The autumn of 2023 being undoubtedly the most difficult part of the year. Since the atrocities in Israel of 7 October, there has been no let-up in human bloodshed, the unspeakable and indiscriminate, targeted killing of civilians across the Gaza strip, but also the West Bank and Southern Lebanon. The ongoing and daily worsening – entirely human made – humanitarian catastrophe pales all the other recent global developments that we could otherwise write about into insignificance.

Having said that, it is worth reflecting on some of the other events of the autumn of 2023, as they too will doubtlessly have severe and lasting consequences for millions of people, in particular refugees, indigenous peoples and other minoritized communities. They include, the election victories of nationalist, populists in Argentina and the Netherlands, the rejection by the Australian people of enhanced legal recognition for the country’s indigenous population, ever more bizarre plans by the UK government to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and anti-immigration riots in Ireland, which many believe to be one of Europe’s most welcoming countries, as well as of course the ongoing war in Ukraine, facing into its second winter, with no sign of let up.

Living in selfish times

Readers, whether they agree or not with the above assessment, may ask, where the archaeology and/or the heritage are in this political ‘soap box’. On discussing the outcome of the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum with a colleague from that country, they responded by saying that while they are hugely disappointed, they are by no means surprised and followed this with stating that ‘we live in selfish times.’ This latter comment really struck a nerve. While the role of Aboriginal heritage, would have played a major part in this constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, the question that really comes to mind is, where is the community in all of this? Where is the sense of community, of sharing the country between Indigenous Australians, European settlers and more recent arrivals? Where is the global community, stepping in to prevent the mass killing and forced starvation of children and total humanitarian collapse in Gaza? Where is the community of Argentinian, Dutch, British or Irish people standing up to populist, nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric?

What all of these situations have in common, is an increased entrenchment of polarization and an ever more ‘inflated belief in the clear-cut distinctiveness and indisputable greatness of ‘us’ as opposed to ‘them’.’ This is what British-Turkish writer Elif Shafak refers to as ‘group narcissism’, the ‘shared illusion that we are the centre of the world’ (Shafak 2020, 18–19). With this growing trend towards selfishness and narcissism comes an unwillingness to allow those with other perspectives to speak or to listen to their stories. Shafak contends that ‘not to be able to tell your story, to be silenced and shut out, […] is to be dehumanised’ (Shafak 2020, 9) and the dehumanization of people of other backgrounds can be found at the centre not just of the conflict in the Middle East, but also recent nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-indigenous rhetoric all over the world.

Enter community heritage

Archaeology is also a form of storytelling (Joyce 2002), and as in the wider world, within the ‘heritage industry’ there are power structures that ensure that the narratives of certain groups and individuals frequently drown out those of people from other perspectives, especially from backgrounds other than those that are white, male and western. At the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage, we see it as our mission to reverse this trend and ensure that the voices of global majority perspectives are heard and given the opportunity to make their rightful contribution to shaping heritage discourse. So, what is it that we can learn from our understanding of the past if guided by these diverse community viewpoints? The contributions in the current issue of JCAH, are a primary example of alternative models of community work, co-production and collaboration, away from the prevailing discourse of self-interest and individualism. There is a beautiful symmetry to the four papers in this issue, with two coming from northern North America (Canada and Alaska) and two from East Africa (Tanzania and Zimbabwe), as they are also connected in other interesting ways across the continental divides. For example, both Rivera and Chipanagura’s contributions focus on local working traditions and ways of making a living, whether through fishing practices in Quebec or traditional gold mining in Eastern Zimbabwe. They highlight the importance of exploring such traditional and historical practices – now largely extinct or obsolete – for understanding social relationships in these places (and beyond), not only in the past but also the present. Simialry, the contributions of both Hillerdal et al. and Ichumbaki et al. explore the importance of local traditions and community-based forms of knowledge for contemporary understandings. Hillerdal et al. report on the role of local community-based heritage research and the establishment of a community-run heritage centre in Alaska. Ichumbaki et al. look at the vital information about heritage sites held by local communities in southern Tanzania and highlight the need for greater dialogue and collaboration between heritage professionals and local communities.

In short, all four contributions illustrate the importance of listening to and amplifying the narratives, as told by local people and communities, which traditionally have been underrepresented, entirely overlooked or, worse still, actively written out of the story. They thereby underscore the power of listening and that taking time to paying attention to different people’s perspectives – even if we stand on opposite sides of a notional or sometimes all too real fence – is not only a way of acknowledging each other’s humanity but also an act of both care and self-care, as this will invariably enrich our own experience of the world.

To conclude with the words of Elif Shafak, through the simple act of listening ‘we have all the tools to build our society anew, reform our ways of thinking, fix the inequalities and end the discriminations, […] choose empathy over hatred, choose humanism over tribalism, yet we don’t have much time or room for error while we are losing our planet, our only home’ (Shafak 2020, 90).