ISSR Social Science Research Scholar - Biography
Whitney Battle-Baptiste
Assistant Professor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Department of Anthropology
Heritage and Archaeology at the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite, Great Barrington, MA
The Department of Anthropology is transforming its long-running Archaeological Field School to include a broader range of methods found in contemporary archaeological practice. This new direction includes critical heritage studies, collaborative programming, and a push toward sustainable relationships between scholars and local and associated communities. My project, Heritage and Archaeology at the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite, owned by UMass-Amherst, has become a vehicle for understanding the rich and complex history of people of African descent in the Connecticut River Valley and New England. One of our main goals is to change the way archaeology operates within the academy and to reach out to underrepresented groups that have traditionally never looked to archaeology as a source of understanding the African American past. I would like to use the year to develop a coherent and successful National Science Foundation, Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) proposal to cover the cost of the Du Bois Heritage Archaeology Field School for the summer of 2014.