Hey everyone! It may not have been that long since my last blog post but a lot has definitely happened. For me, the last few weeks were actually pretty stressful (…and by pretty stressful, I mean VERY stressful). This was largely because of my thesis proposal, which I submitted to the Archaeology department on February 15th and then presented and defended on March 10th (which was also my 24th birthday, I might add…). The main source of stress for me wasn’t so much the written component (although that was certainly a big deal), as it was the presentation aspect. Public speaking has never been my strong suit and actually gives me SO much anxiety, but somehow (through preparation, practice and a whole lot of encouragement from my friends, family, colleagues and supervisor), I did it! I am actually so proud to say that I, and everyone in my very hardworking cohort, passed!
As promised in my last post, I want to spend some time to talk about Public Engagement here at Memorial. Public engagement is actually one of the core areas of Memorial’s mission (in addition to research and teaching and learning). As the university’s Public Engagement website will tell you, Memorial encourages and supports public engagement through faculties, units, and centres that offer programming to help facilitate it, through funding opportunities, and through something called the Public Engagement Framework. By building upon Memorial’s long history of collaboration and partnerships outside of the university, the Public Engagement Framework is designed to help bring together Memorial’s existing public engagement activities by supporting and celebrating the countless public engagement success stories we have from across the university.
Overall, the vision is for Memorial to become a world leader as an engaged public university, through its special obligation to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Memorial’s culture of public engagement is guided by a set of values which include: respect, equity and diversity, integrity, transparency and accountability, accessibility and responsiveness, and excellence. The Public Engagement Framework also has a set of 4 distinct goals and objectives: 1) Make a difference, 2) Mobilize Memorial, 3) Enable engagement, and 4) Bridges to engagement. Goal 1 is to make a positive difference in our communities, province, country, and world. Goal 2 is to mobilize Memorial for public engagement. Goal 3 is to cultivate the conditions for the public to also engage with us. Finally, Goal 4 is to build, strengthen, and sustain bridges for public engagement.
I think part of the reason this particular framework promoted here at Memorial has caught my attention so much is really due to my interest in community archaeology, also known as public archaeology (although there is some debate as to whether or not those two terms are truly interchangeable). While archaeologists, generally speaking anyway, study the dead, our work does have very real implications for the living. As a result, community archaeology has actually become one of the most important developments within our discipline over the last 20 or so years. Archaeologists are known to engage with the public in a variety of different ways and this has lead to the establishment of different types of public archaeology. Some of the more common types include: archaeology with the public, archaeology by the public, public sector archaeology, open archaeology as well as academic public archaeology (and that’s just to name a few!)
Although my research in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon is, at the end of the day, really more of a traditional academic archaeological project than anything else, it is also very important to me and my supervisor that our research not remain confined within academic circles. The people of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon are very proud of their history and are eager to develop a program of archaeology over there. This is especially true given the fact that tourism has become their most important industry following the cod moratorium of 1992. By archaeologically investigating 17th and 18th century labour activities and life ways on the archipelago, our research will hopefully be able to contribute to Saint-Pierre et Miquelon’s growing tourism industry by helping to build up the knowledge surrounding this poorly understood period in their past.
I will be the first to admit, I am still very new to the Public Engagement Framework. As such, I am always looking for more ways and best practices to involve the local community with my research specifically. As I mentioned in my previous post, my supervisor Dr. Losier and I are planning to invite members of the Saint-Pierre community to join us and the Field School students during our dig this coming summer. I am excited to say I recently heard we have at least two students from Saint-Pierre who have expressed interest in joining us already! Additionally, my supervisor and I are planning to become engaged with the local media and those in charge of heritage management like Le musée de l’Arche and l’association Sauvegarde du Patrimoine de l’Archipel (SPA). Although new to a program of historical archaeology, it is worth noting that the people of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon are no strangers to engaging with Memorial thanks to the Frecker program, an amazing French immersion opportunity offered to students during our Summer and Fall semesters at Saint-Pierre’s Francoforum.
While I may be very much in the early stages of both my master’s research and my plans for engaging the public within it, Memorial has presented me with several opportunities to able to talk about my plans with people from across the university. One recent opportunity took place a few weekends ago during the 19th Annual Aldrich Multidisciplinary Graduate Research Conference (held between March 17th and 19th). The theme for this year’s Aldrich Conference was “Community Oriented Research: Local and Global Communities” and (as pictured above,) I decided to enter a poster presentation. This was a fantastic opportunity to speak about my research with a variety of different people from outside my discipline. Each person I spoke to came from a different academic background and some of them had really interesting ideas for methods of going about “community oriented research.” Based on my experience, I would definitely recommend next year’s conference to any grad students looking for an opportunity to engage their research with other academics from different disciplines.
Thanks for reading,
~Meghann
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