This episode is the second of a three-part series produced by Eleanor Neil, contributing editor at American Anthropologist and Anthropological Airwaves. From the African American Burial Ground in New York City to the memorialization of violence in Northern Ireland to professional archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean, Eleanor asks archaeologists with different regional and methodological specialties to choose a single object or site, and, in their own words describe how this this site or artefact speaks to the interaction between archaeology and political or social identity across time and place.

In this episode, Dr. Laura McAtackney, discusses the materiality of violence and partition, the nature of commemoration and how archaeology of the recent past has an integral role in our understandings of politics, society and conflict. 

Dr. McAtackney is an associate professor at Aarhus University and her research centres on the historical and contemporary archaeologies of institutions and colonialism in Ireland.

Further Reading: 
Flanagan, Eimear. “McGurk’s Bar Bombing: I just want justice for my grandparents.” BBC News: Northern Ireland, 12 December 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-59569348/. 

McAtackney, Laura. “Materials and Memory: Archaeology and Heritage as Tools of Transitional Justice at a Former Magdalen Laundry.” Éire-Ireland 55, nos. 1 & 2, (Spring/Summer 2020): 223-246.

MacAirt, Ciarán. "Corporate memory and the McGurk's Bar Massacre: Ciarán MacAirt writes about the murder of his grandmother and 14 other civilians in a Belfast bar 43 years ago, and the families’ on-going campaign for truth." Criminal Justice Matters 98, no. 1 (2014): 6-7.

Justice for Magdalenes Research, an online resource associated with the NGO, Justice for Magdalenes. http://jfmresearch.com/aboutjfmr/

Transcript: https://www.americananthropologist.org/podcast/archaeological-identities-part-02
Close captioning:  https://youtu.be/Ca8TmrXZ2jw 

Credits:
Writing, Production & Editing: Eleanor Neil
Production Support: Anar Parikh
Executive Producer - Anar Parikh
Thumbnail Image: Photo by Freya McClements for the Irish Times
Featured Music: “Westlin’ Winds” by Eoin O’Donnell
Intro/Outro: "Waiting" by Crowander

Westlin' Winds

S04E04: Archaeological Identities - Part Two

Anthropological Airwaves is the official podcast of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. It is a venue for highlighting the polyphony of voices across the discipline’s four fields and the infinite—and often overlapping—subfields within them. Through conversations, experiments in sonic ethnography, ethnographic journalism, and other (primarily but not exclusively) aural formats, Anthropological Airwaves endeavors to explore the conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical issues that shape anthropology’s past, present, and future; experiment with new ways of conversing, listening, and asking questions; and collaboratively and collectively push the boundaries of what constitutes anthropological knowledge production. Anthropological Airwaves shares the journal’s commitment to advancing research on the archaeological, biological, linguistic, and sociocultural aspects of the human experience by featuring the work of those who study and practice anthropology within and beyond the academy.