Dr Rachael Kiddey
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford

Migrant Materialities: an archaeology of the material culture of forced displacement in contemporary Europe

From Mesolithic footprint-tracks identified in the ancient mud of the Severn estuary to clothing snagged on barbed wire fences that surround the port of Calais, archaeology has always been about the study of movement as much as material culture. Unlike more deskbound social science colleagues – economists, sociologists, historians – archaeologists are required to go out and see what is there. As archaeologists, we move to and within field-sites and collections, we study how artefacts and assemblages are spatialised across multi-scalar distances (temporal and geographic). The study of relationships between objects, people, and places requires us to consider not just how things were made, but the movements involved in their making – how materials were transported, exchanged, adapted, discarded – and the mobility of the people/s involved.

My current research into the material culture of forced displacement in Europe is dominated by a cruel dichotomy – migrants (people socially and politically characterised by mobility) often make arduous journeys only to find themselves ‘stuck’ in states of permanent stasis, while objects which co-constitute their experiences – things, photos, images, narratives – easily cross the borders that restrain them. Expected to exist on the street, in squats, in camps, in the borderlands – many migrants to Europe must increasingly occupy what philosopher John Holloway calls ‘capitalism’s cracks.’ The tension between movement and stability is precisely the migrant experience and to study it archaeologically requires that we develop new, collaborative methods for studying objects in migration. In this presentation, I outline the participatory methods used in the ‘Migrant Materialities’ project and discuss how Covid-19 restrictions have forced me to innovate working methods, relying on creative adaptations of more established archaeological approaches to the material culture of forced displacement in contemporary Europe. I argue that approaching present-day phenomenon, such as human displacement, using archaeological means can be a form of activism, a way to evidence real-lived experiences and living conditions and use data to advocate for improved human rights.