COMMUNITY AND CONSERVATION

Our project strives to embrace ethical perspectives of partnership, collaboration and inclusivity with Maya communities

COMMUNITY.

It is important for scholars to engage in consultations with stakeholder communities regarding important research questions to ensure respectful methods and transparency, and to work collaboratively toward interpretations that embrace culturally-appropriate viewpoints. In recent years a focus on archaeological ethics has been increasing the participation of indigenous stakeholders in research and community engagement. This is particularly evident in research that involves molecular studies of human health, migration, and diet that have modern political implications

Our project strives to embrace ethical perspectives of partnership, collaboration and inclusivity with Maya communities.

Our projects have a long history of working alongside local communities in the Maya Golden Landscape of southern Belize as part of our research into past cultural and biological studies of ancestral populations. Our research is conducted in close collaboration with the Ya’axché Conservation Trust, an internationally recognized Belizean NGO which co-manages the Bladen Nature Reserve (BNR) with the Government of Belize. Ya’axché is locally managed and staffed by members of descendent Maya communities. As part of this collaboration, BPAAP research proposals are annually reviewed by the Ya’axché administrative and scientific staff. Members of boundary communities proximate to the BNR are directly involved in this research and are project collaborators. ROOTS regularly conducts formal consultation with local boundary communities of the BRN to discuss our field and laboratory research, to seek input on our research questions and to share translations of published articles and other educational materials.

We will continue to engage with communities as collaborators and draw attention to these collaborations in publications, making them integral to the research enterprise. We support community engagement beyond the consultation process by providing educational materials to communities that otherwise lack access to such resources. Our rationale is that these are the right courses of action and that they set an example for other archaeologists working near to stakeholder communities. This project will facilitate training of US archaeology students to engage with communities and staff within our partner organization.