Gullah/Geechee agency
Centering cultural knowledge and social equity in heritage at risk
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24214766 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Representative Glenda Simmons Jenkins (0009-0001-6507-0187, Gullah/Geechee Nation), Emily Jane Murray (0000-0001-6106-9712, Flagler College), Sarah E Miller (0000-0002-5558-1813, Flagler College), Kassie Kemp (0000-0001-9392-041X, Flagler College) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Southeastern Archaeology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0734-578X • E-ISSN: 2168-4723 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0734578x.2026.2719322 |
| OpenAlex | W7214160975 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 23 |
For generations, Gullah/Geechee communities have thrived along the coast from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida. However, climate threats and impacts affect both their communities and historic and cultural sites. Because legacies of racism and systemic injustice can exacerbate climate impacts in many places, social equity must be a guiding tenet of heritage at risk work. Since 2020, the Gullah/Geechee Nation has collaborated with the Florida Public Archaeology Network to protect and sustain Gullah/Geechee heritage, largely through documenting resources in Nassau County, Florida. To date, the Gullah/Geechee Burial Ground Recording Project has recorded 15 new sites and updated seven in the Florida Master Site File, work directed by the community. The project illustrates the importance of engaging with local – and especially descendant – communities as site triage and mitigation strategies will have huge impacts on contemporary communities. Collaborative and community-based archaeological methods guide the project, prioritizing the documentation of sites and histories significant to the Gullah/Geechee people. These methods establish a framework committed to centering cultural perspective to produce a comprehensive record of the past. The framework renders an inclusive historic contextualization leading to site interpretation that amplifies existing community voices and their contribution to the decisions made about the sites..
community archaeology · descendant communities · heritage at risk · mitigation · social equity · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies
Learning the ropes
Sea-level rise and archaeological site destruction
Are there social limits to adaptation to climate change?
Calm in the face of chaos
Heritage Monitoring Scouts
Implications of global climate change to local archaeology
Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change
Climate change impacts on cultural heritage
Preservation at the Intersections
North American Heritage at Risk (Nahar) Research Pipeline and Collaborative Community
How archaeologists can respond to the climate crisis
Building a Foundation to Unify the Language of Climate Change in Historical Archaeology
Introduction
Climate Change and the Consequences of Underrepresentation in the Archaeological Record
Bending Archaeology toward Social Justice
Collaborative Science and Digital Tools
Racial coastal formation
Community archaeology and climate change
Archaeology and Heritage of the Gullah People
The Future of Archaeology Is Antiracist
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |