February 2023

I was into theatre in high school, and I thought that’s what I would study in college.  And as an undergraduate, I was a Communications Study major.  But, one summer I participated in an archaeological field trip at [Thomas Jefferson’s home] Monticello, and after that experience, I began to feel the kind of curiosity about what we could do with archaeology to better understand social relationships and social inequality.

I would say that we don’t solve problems so much as we address them. What I hope to do with my scholarship is to start productive conversations about difficult issues that people would rather not talk about. That seems like a modest goal but it’s not easy and relatively few people do it. The idea of a conversation is that it is based on give and take.  I am trying to engage folks in conversations about challenging histories that many people would just as soon forget.

I've had I think I've had more of an impact on campus, really than I have in the community. Even though I'm really pleased with the impact my research has had in the neighborhoods around the campus, I think my biggest intervention has been on the way we on campus view our relationship to the community that was here before we were.  This was a community of color that was displaced. Many of those descendants still live on the near Westside, in proximity to campus, as well as in other Indianapolis neighborhoods.  When I arrived here 20 years ago, a lot of people had been wanting to have that conversation, but no one was willing to start it.  I was too foolish to see that, so I just jumped right in. And suddenly, lots of those individuals who were also very aware of this history started coming out of the woodwork.  Some of them were staff. Some of them were community members. And lots of them were full time faculty.

Since then, we’ve had a lot of programs and activities that address that history.  There is the exhibit on the ground floor of the science building about the community that we displaced to build our campus, called “Welcome to the Neighborhood;” there are historical markers around campus; and there is the Through Their Eyes Memorial Scholarship,” which commemorates the generation who once called Ransom Place, Indiana Avenue and our campus home, by offering their descendants scholarships to IUPUI . Some years ago, I collaborated with a local resident, the late Glenn S. White, on the book, The Price of Progress, which captured the sentiments of community elders, who celebrated the history of their near-Westside neighborhood and reflected on how that community had been transformed by urban renewal.  All of these activities have been meaningful to me in showing how we can use our research to address and, to some modest extent, to redress the injuries caused by historical injustices.

Definitely working with elders.  When you walk away from an interview with an elder, and you know you've learned something from them, it is so rewarding. With most older folks, they will also acknowledge that they've gotten something from me and the work that I do.  It’s so great to learn from them and then to share their knowledge and experiences with broader audiences.  I am compulsively thorough about my research, but after some of these interviews, I know that there is always something more to learn or there may be something I have missed. Sharing this material through my blogs, Archaeology and Material Culture, and Invisible Indianapolis, has made these stories available and accessible to a larger public audience.

From the time I have been at IUPUI, students have been an important part of my work.  For several years, I had students working on archaeological digs on campus and in the adjacent neighborhood, Ransom Place, to explore how we can understand the world and its divisions through the lens of materiality. I think most of our students understand that from now on, archaeology will always be conducted not only in communities but with communities.  I have also involved students in using digital resources to explore the stories of the recent past and many of them have contributed to blogs I set up, including African-American Suburbia, and to a site that explores racial displacement and urban transformation along Indianapolis’ downtown canal.  In many cases, students have uncovered stories that have really added new insights into understanding our city’s past and have documented the roles played by urban renewal and displacement in shaping our contemporary landscape.

Community people are my research!  My work is really driven by my conversations with community residents and their interests and concerns.

This is the golden age of digital resources.  I remember in my early years, having to work with microfilm to do historical research.  Now we have city directories, maps, newspapers and census data, all of which are available online and are searchable.  I have taught many of my colleagues and my students to use these resources to explore issues in our city’s past.  My wife [Marlys Pearson] is also an excellent scholar and her proficiency using digital resources is easily as good as mine, so it helps to collaborate with her.  I think that my particular disciplinary home, Historical Archaeology, is made up of people like me who are breaking down boundaries between public history, cultural anthropology and archaeology.

It's all about the storytelling.  That’s the creative end of the research process. You can do all the research but then, not tell the story. It’s the stories that are key to making our knowledge accessible and politically relevant.