Department of Anthropology Speaker Series presents: Heather Law Pezzarossi

This talk will outline the trajectory of my recent dissertation, which combines archaeological evidence with museum studies to build a multi-disciplinary history of an Indigenous family in Central Massachusetts in the early 19th century. I argue that despite colonial tactics of dispossession and confinement, Native families used strategies of materiality and mobility to continue to inhabit their Native social landscapes. I challenge the myth of cultural ‘authenticity’ as spatial and material fixity with a study of colonial Native basketry and an associated tool assemblage that highlights the co-dynamics of material innovation and spatial mobility.

Dr. Heather Law Pezzarossi is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Anthropology Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.