Unclear boundaries and expectations. Blurred hierarchical roles and relationships. Lack of clear reporting mechanisms. Not fitting in, not keeping up. Drinking culture. The Wild West. Whisper networks. Meritocracy. What happens in the field stays in the field. Consequences for speaking out. Leaky pipelines. It was just a joke. That’s just how things are. They’re just a product of a different time. Better to stay quiet. Think of your career. Don’t rock the boat.
Archaeology staggers under the weight of its many “gray zones,” contexts within disciplinary culture in which boundaries, relationships, ethical responsibilities, and expectations of behavior are rendered “blurry.” Gray zones are sites and interactions where informality obscures power hierarchies (Leighton Reference Leighton2020); where harassment and overwork are normalized (Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020); where survivors question whether their experiences are reportable, believable, or in some cases even happened (Voss Reference Voss2021a, Reference Voss2021b); and where reports are dismissed, discouraged, or mired in bureaucracy (d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021). These liminal spaces of blurred expectations and ill-defined boundaries mark archaeology’s disciplinary history (Leighton Reference Leighton2020; Moser Reference Moser2007). Recent studies have exposed the prevalence and persistence of harassment, abuse, and discrimination in archaeology and anthropology (e.g., Clancy et al. Reference Clancy, Nelson, Rutherford and Hinde2014; Colaninno et al. Reference Colaninno, Lambert, Beahm and Drexler2020; Coto Sarmiento et al. Reference Sarmiento, María, López Martínez, Martín Alonso, Pastor Pérez, Ruíz Martínez and Yubero Góme2020; Hays-Gilpin et al. Reference Kelley, Thies-Sauder, Jalbert, Heath-Stout, Thakar, Aitchison, Driver, Supernant and VanDerwarker2019; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2019, Reference Heath-Stout2022; Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020; Jalbert Reference Jalbert2019; Leighton Reference Leighton2020; Meyers et al. Reference Meyers, Boudreax, Carmody, Dekle, Horton and Wright2015, Reference Meyers, Horton, Boudreaux, Carmody, Wright and Dekle2018; Nelson et al. Reference Nelson, Rutherford, Hinde and Clancy2017; Radde Reference Radde2018; VanDerwarker et al. Reference VanDerwarker, Brown, Gonzalez and Radde2018), highlighting not only the need for better accountability but also, importantly, disciplinary change. In this article, we explore the gray zone to shed light on the frameworks of thought and practice in disciplinary culture that create a largely invisible infrastructure for continued harm, thereby preventing meaningful accountability measures.
In 2019, the Working Group on Equity and Diversity in Canadian Archaeology distributed a survey assessing issues surrounding #MeToo, discrimination and inequity, and abuses of power (see Hodgetts et al. [Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020] for initial survey analysis).Footnote 1 In 2020, we conducted 26 follow-up interviews with archaeologists representing various backgrounds, ethnicities, and experiences. The narrative survey responses and transcribed interviews provide a qualitative dataset that addresses how archaeologists in Canada experience and perceive harassment and other forms of discrimination in everyday practice, relationships, and career trajectories, something not fully captured by our survey and others. We wanted to understand how multiple aspects of individual archaeologists’ identities come together to shape their experiences in the discipline. We were particularly interested in the experiences of archaeologists from minoritized groups. The notion of the gray zone emerged as we coded and analyzed these data, providing a framework to make sense of personal experiences within the broader context of disciplinary culture in archaeology.
What is a gray zone? Various literatures in anthropology and related fields, particularly feminist studies, have effectively mobilized the term to examine gender-based violence and sexual harassment (Carstensen Reference Gunilla2016; Cerdán-Torregrosa et al. Reference Cerdán-Torregrosa, Nardini and Vives-Cases2023), political corruption (Robertson Reference Robertson2006), policing and sovereignty (Feldman Reference Feldman2019), and trauma and justice (Baines Reference Baines2011). One use of the term stems from Primo Levi’s (Reference Levi1988) essay “The Gray Zone,” which grapples with the impossible contradiction of Jewish men who served in privileged positions under Nazi rule to escape their own persecution (see also Card Reference Card and Claudia1999; Roy Reference Roy2008; Waterhouse-Watson and Brown Reference Waterhouse-Watson and Brown2011). The gray zone in this sense is a space where the categories of victim and perpetrator become confused, a space where judgment is, Levi argues, an impossibility. We want to distinguish from Levi’s use of the term here: In our application, perpetrators and victims are not one and the same, and although we have no interest in judgment, we want to be clear that the gray zone as we discuss it does not absolve personal accountability. Instead, it muddies the waters, undermining our ability to hold perpetrators to account. Neither is the gray zone we discuss an ambiguous space between perceived “black” and “white” (e.g., right vs. wrong; clear-cut laws, rules, and regulations vs. illegal activity; see Feldman Reference Feldman2019). For us, gray zones are instead spaces where clear ethical expectations are subverted by an ethos of silence and tacit cooperation. Our use more closely aligns with Cerdán-Torregrosa and colleagues’ (Reference Cerdán-Torregrosa, Nardini and Vives-Cases2023) use of the concept to describe the disconnect between explicit assertions against gender-based violence and the difficulty of applying those beliefs to nonexplicit scenarios, or Carstensen’s (Reference Gunilla2016) examination of the consequences of fuzzy legal definitions and perceptions of harassment in workplaces. We are explicitly interested in gray zones as they apply not just to perpetrators or survivors but also to all archaeologists who operate within systems that produce and reproduce harm, while recognizing that those harms exist and demand redress. Archaeology is known for flexibility, fieldwork, comradery, and relationship building, all of which can be positive and constructive building blocks for successful careers. But these same features, without ethical direction and intention, have the potential to create gray zones. In a gray zone, harmful behavior does not merely go unchecked; the expectation, unspoken or otherwise, is that harmful behavior will remain unchecked.
We identified several facets of the gray zone as we discuss it in this article. Gray zones create and perpetuate conditions that allow for lapses in ethical behavior and abuses of power, intentional or otherwise. They can occur in physical settings (e.g., fieldwork, classrooms, labs, conferences) and in relationships involving hierarchies (e.g., professor–student, supervisor–employee) and interactions that rely on informality and the pressure to conform (e.g., drinking culture; Bradford and Crema Reference Bradford and Crema2022; Leighton Reference Leighton2020; Moser Reference Moser2007; see also Colaninno et al. Reference Colaninno, Lambert, Beahm and Drexler2020). Archaeology’s gray zones foster socialized gaslighting, which mobilizes “gendered stereotypes; structural vulnerabilities related to race, nationality, and sexuality; and institutional inequalities against victims to erode their realities” (Sweet Reference Sweet2019:851). They undermine processes of accountability in cases of personal harm while perpetuating structural harms by upholding colonialism, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and ableism. This is no small issue. The exhaustion and trauma of navigating gray zones result in the loss of talented archaeologists, particularly those early in their careers and from communities that remain underrepresented in archaeology and anthropology (Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2019:289; Nelson et al. Reference Nelson, Rutherford, Hinde and Clancy2017:715; Voss Reference Voss2021a:255).
Gray zones also function by “hiding” in plain sight. They make the work of exposing perpetrators difficult and even dangerous, and that work too often falls to those who are survivors of harassment, violence, and discrimination. These are often the same people who shoulder the highest risk in terms of their careers, networks, and well-being (d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021; Voss Reference Voss2021a, Reference Voss2021b). The vulnerability associated with reporting or speaking out, along with a veneration of powerful figures and a “don’t rock the boat” mentality, perpetuates a culture where harmful behaviors are ignored or normalized (Shulist and Mulla Reference Shulist and Mulla2022; Voss Reference Voss2021a, Reference Voss2021b). Gray zones push discussions of harm into whisper networks (see Voss Reference Voss2021a). Expectations of silence prioritize perpetrators’ comfort and reputations. Survivors speak in private or not at all.
These expectations are beginning to crumble. In recent years, high-profile cases of harassment in archaeology and anthropology have pulled discussions of disciplinary violence into the public eye (e.g., Bondura et al. Reference Bondura, Darwent, Halmhofer, Heppner, Killgrove, Marie Pageau, Smith, Supernant and Walder2019; Cho and Kim Reference Cho and Kim2022; d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021; Wade Reference Wade2019). Because of the courage of survivors, issues like the casual dismissal of harassment in fieldwork contexts, indiscretions of professors with students at parties, the expectation of silence to protect powerful perpetrators, the glossing over of abuse as mentorship, intense scrutiny of survivors’ stories, and the failures of institutional reporting mechanisms like Title IX entered a new register in disciplinary conversations. Such cases illustrate the ways that power (held by people and institutions) is leveraged to normalize or dismiss harm (Walters Reference Walters2022) and how difficult gray zones make it to demand accountability.
There is a need to take a close look at the disciplinary context and culture in which these harms occur. The concept of the gray zone offers one way to make sense of this and chart a way forward. Drawing on the narrative responses in the survey and interviews we undertook on behalf of the Canadian Archaeological Association’s Working Group on Equity and Diversity, we address three contexts where gray zones occur in archaeology: the field, drinking culture, and relationships. We then discuss some tangible solutions that can begin to dispel gray zones in the discipline, while acknowledging that bureaucratic solutions alone will not be sufficient. Because gray zones often operate in, through, and around our established bureaucratic frameworks, a cultural shift is also needed.
Recent Studies on Harassment and Equity in Archaeology
Although conversations about equity in archaeology span decades (e.g., Agbe-Davies Reference Agbe-Davies2002; Anonymous Reference Nelson, Nelson and Alison1994; Beaudry and White Reference Beaudry, White and Claassen1994; Claassen Reference Claassen1994, Reference Claassen2000; Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1991; Dowson Reference Dowson2000; Franklin Reference Franklin1997; Martin Reference Martin2002; Martinez Reference Martinez2002; Watkins Reference Watkins2002; Wright Reference Wright2002; Wylie Reference Wylie1997), there has been a notable shift in archaeology as #MeToo and the Black Lives Matter movement gave unprecedented visibility to conversations about harassment and systemic forms of discrimination (Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020; Hays-Gilpin et al. Reference Kelley, Thies-Sauder, Jalbert, Heath-Stout, Thakar, Aitchison, Driver, Supernant and VanDerwarker2019). This visibility is due to the courage of survivors telling their stories, as well as a series of new studies demonstrating just how widespread these problems are (e.g., Bradford and Crema Reference Bradford and Crema2022; Clancy et al. Reference Clancy, Nelson, Rutherford and Hinde2014; Coto Sarmiento et al. Reference Sarmiento, María, López Martínez, Martín Alonso, Pastor Pérez, Ruíz Martínez and Yubero Góme2020; Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020; Jalbert Reference Jalbert2019; Johnson et al. Reference Johnson, Widnall and Benya2018; Meyers et al. Reference Meyers, Boudreax, Carmody, Dekle, Horton and Wright2015, Reference Meyers, Horton, Boudreaux, Carmody, Wright and Dekle2018; Nakhai Reference Nakhai2017; Radde Reference Radde2018; Shulist and Mulla Reference Shulist and Mulla2022; VanDerwarker et al. Reference VanDerwarker, Brown, Gonzalez and Radde2018; see Voss Reference Voss2021a for an excellent overview). As this slate of recent studies show, these issues are prevalent across anthropological and archaeological practice (Voss Reference Voss2021a) and have real consequences for the careers and well-being of archaeologists, particularly those from minoritized and historically underrepresented groups (d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021:905).
Such studies illustrate where gray zones operate and who they affect. For example, widespread sexual harassment negatively affects women’s career trajectories within archaeology, and gender discrimination is often implicit in archaeological training (Meyers et al. Reference Meyers, Horton, Boudreaux, Carmody, Wright and Dekle2018:4). Archaeologists of color and LGBTQAI2S+ archaeologists experience higher numbers of instances of harassment (Radde Reference Radde2018; see also Brown Reference Brown2018; Gonzalez Reference Gonzalez2018; VanDerwarker et al. Reference VanDerwarker, Brown, Gonzalez and Radde2018), and non-male archaeologists and those who identify as a sexual minority are significantly more likely to have experienced sexual misconduct than cisgender, male, and heterosexual colleagues (Bradford and Crema Reference Bradford and Crema2022). D’Alpoim Guedes and colleagues (Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021:205) state, “Sexual harassment is often just the tip of the iceberg in a range of other aggressions that impacts women and minoritized students’ ability to continue their careers in academia.”
A growing body of literature addresses disparities experienced across minoritized groups in archaeology, highlighting the need for structural change. Women are cited, published, and hired less than their male colleagues, a disparity exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Bardolph Reference Bardolph2014; Bardolph and VanDerwarker Reference Bardolph and VanDerwarker2016; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2020; Jalbert and Heath-Stout Reference Jalbert and Heath-Stout2021; Overholtzer and Jalbert Reference Lisa and Jalbert2021; Tushingham et al. Reference Tushingham, Fulkerson and Hill2017; see also Goldstein et al. Reference Goldstein, Mills, Herr, Ellen Burkholder, Aiello and Thornton2018). Heath-Stout (Reference Heath-Stout2022) highlights the discrimination and obstacles faced by disabled archaeologists as they work to establish careers in an inherently ableist discipline. Blackmore and colleagues (Reference Blackmore, Drane, Baldwin and Ellis2016) examine how fieldwork, as a cornerstone of archaeology, upholds structures of heteronormativity and masculinity and can be an exclusionary space for queer archaeologists (see also Rutecki and Blackmore Reference Rutecki and Blackmore2016). White and Draycott (Reference White and Draycott2020) detail ways that the pseudoscientific and racist legacies of anthropology and archaeology continue to inform white aggressions toward Black and Indigenous colleagues. Ike and colleagues (Reference Ike, Miller and Omoni Hartemann2020) demonstrate the physical, mental, and emotional toll that racism in the discipline takes on Black colleagues and outline a path toward antiracist practice. Franklin and colleagues (Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020) and Flewellen and colleagues (Reference Flewellen, Dunnavant, Odewale, Jones, Wolde-Michael, Crossland and Franklin2021) ground antiracism work in decades of Black activism within and beyond archaeology. The necessary work of exposing the gray zone is well underway, as demonstrated by the work of these and other scholars.
As Crenshaw (Reference Crenshaw1991) shows, people whose identities place them at the intersections of multiple marginalized groups experience overlapping forms of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and heterosexism) and face more and different barriers in navigating societal structures (see also Jones Reference Jones2022). The effects of these multiple forms of oppression compound so that they are more than the sum of each form (King Reference King1988). Several studies have hinted at the powerful ways in which intersectionality shapes knowledge production, experiences, and equity in archaeology (e.g., Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2022; Rivera Prince et al. Reference Jordi A., Blackwood, Brough, Landázuri, Leclerc, Barnes and Douglass2022), and Black feminist archaeologists have demonstrated the urgent necessity of intersectional feminist approaches for a more inclusive, just, and relevant discipline (e.g., Battle-Baptiste Reference Battle-Baptiste2011; Fryer and Raczek Reference Tiffany C. and Raczek2020). Our study participants, particularly those who reported having multiple marginalized identities, shared how intersectional experiences were profoundly connected to experiences of gray zones. More work is clearly needed: addressing and understanding intersectional experiences in and of archaeology should be a leading issue for ongoing studies of equity and harassment.
Fieldwork stands out as a common context for harassment and other forms of abuse (e.g., Clancy et al. Reference Clancy, Nelson, Rutherford and Hinde2014; Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020:36). The field has long been the romanticized center of archaeological disciplinary identity (Moser Reference Moser2007:243; see also Bradford and Crema Reference Bradford and Crema2022; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2022; Voss Reference Voss2021b). Exclusionary ideals associated with fieldwork—physicality, strength, endurance, working outdoors, adventure, et cetera—facilitate “the construction of a disciplinary identity” that has tangible impacts on who produces archaeological knowledge (Moser Reference Moser2007:243, 249; see also Beaudry and White Reference Beaudry, White and Claassen1994; Woodall and Perricone Reference Woodall and Philip1981). Furthermore, field contexts with ambiguous or unenforced rules of behavior, often combined with social pressure to drink to excess, create conditions that perpetuate alienation, unethical behavior, and assaults (Bradford and Crema Reference Bradford and Crema2022; Nelson et al Reference Nelson, Rutherford, Hinde and Clancy2017:714). Many traits associated with fieldwork are coded masculine, cisgendered, able-bodied, and white (Voss Reference Voss2021b). The gray zone of the field emerges from these exclusionary stereotypes, taken as norms, and from both real and perceived blurriness around reporting mechanisms.
The interpersonal space of relationships can also produce gray zones within archaeology, largely because of what Leighton (Reference Leighton2020:444) terms “performative informality,” which serves to “inadvertently reproduce Euro-American white-male privilege” in archaeology. In her ethnography of Andean archaeology, Leighton shows that performative informality centers a culture of informal relationships that ignore power dynamics and blur the lines between the professional and personal. This occurs at the expense of what “might otherwise be understood as class/gender disparities” (Reference Leighton2020:450). Leighton (Reference Leighton2020:444) writes, “In a discipline that prides itself on its friendliness, openness, and alcohol-fueled drinking culture, those who find themselves unable to enact or perform informality appropriately are at a distinct disadvantage.” Such attitudes make abuses of power or unethical behavior from supervisors and peers harder to qualify and address. They also create unspoken expectations for who is welcome in this discipline and who can succeed, which often run counter to parallel messages of inclusivity and diversity. A culture of performative informality generates gray zones, and although it is perhaps most pronounced in fieldwork, this culture tends to permeate every aspect of the discipline.
Semi-structured Interview Methodology
To gather additional data about the impacts that harassment has on archaeologists’ careers at multiple stages, our team conducted 26 semi-structured interviews with Canadian archaeologists. Respondents to our 2019 survey had the option to indicate interest in a follow-up interview (Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020).Footnote 2 The working group selected interview participants to address a diverse range of perspectives across Canadian archaeology and explore lived intersectional experiences in the discipline. Survey respondents had identified primarily as white (87.3%), straight (78.9%), and cisgender (98.8%). For the interviews, we prioritized learning from archaeologists who were underrepresented in the survey sample and in Canadian archaeology more broadly. Equity issues were already at play; recruiting diverse participants proved challenging because of a lack of representation and the burdens placed on minoritized members of archaeology. Interviews take time and emotional labor. Indigenous archaeologists understandably turned down our interview requests at a higher rate than white respondents. Ultimately, our interview sample included people ages 20 through 70+ from various sectors, career stages, and identity categories (e.g., white, Indigenous, nonwhite, heterosexual, and male/female/nonbinary LGBTQIA2S+). We took particular care to address and include the experiences of participants who left archaeology because of harassment and marginalization. Three of our 26 interview participants had recently left the discipline because of negative experiences, and at least two others reported that they were considering leaving or felt pushed out.
All interviews were conducted by phone or Zoom. Because the online survey focused on breadth, interview questions sought to capture temporal trends, elicit individual experiences, and assess the impacts of people’s experiences on their careers. Interviews were conducted in English and French.Footnote 3 Questions addressed why the interviewees agreed to a follow-up session, their career path, their positive and negative experiences regarding equity and diversity, the consequences of those experiences, and personal senses of trends in negative experiences in the discipline, as well as the impacts of the #MeToo movement. The letter of information and consent form we sent to each prospective participant provided the interview questions, explained provisions for confidentiality, and allowed each interviewee to elect anonymity or authorize us to use their name and demographic information.Footnote 4
Our team transcribed and coded the interviews, as well as optional narrative responses to three questions on the 2019 survey, texts that respondents offered to elaborate on their multiple-choice answers. We developed the coding system and refined it through an iterative definition of common themes, including context (e.g., field schools, CRM, academic), experiences (e.g., vulnerability and precarity, power and hierarchy, professional repercussions, belonging and exclusion), subjectivities and identities (e.g., racialized, gendered, age-based), temporal trends, and recommendations for reforms. We analyzed more than 3,000 coded segments from 26 interview transcripts and 502 narrative survey responses (N = 203 respondents).
Because Canadian archaeology comprises a small and sometimes identifiable community, sharing demographic details exposes members of minoritized populations to risk. To maintain confidentiality, this article shares only non-identifying demographic information. We identify participants as LGBTQAI2S+ community members but do not subdivide that community. To contextualize quotes, we generally use self-identified information like race, gender, and position. Except where noted, every quotation represents a different study participant.
The Field as a Gray Zone
The field is commonly characterized as the preeminent workplace for archaeologists (to the neglect of laboratories, museums, and other contexts), a touchstone for disciplinary culture, and a liminal space of professional and personal conduct (Moser Reference Moser2007). Although archaeology happens in a variety of contexts, “the field” often carries a sense of exception based on one or all these characteristics: temporal (short term), social (with a crew), and spatial (removed from structured workplaces like offices or labs). There is nothing inherently harmful about these features, and the flexibility and comradery of fieldwork can be a very positive thing. However, the notion of “being in the field” is often coded with long-lauded aspects of disciplinary culture, from living and working in rugged conditions to the informal blurring of professional relationships (Leighton Reference Leighton2020; Moser Reference Moser2007). There can be pressure to conform to (exclusionary) ideals and overlook unprofessional conduct. This culture of fieldwork, without clear guidance or strong leadership, enables the formation of gray zones. Our survey found that negative experiences happened overwhelmingly in fieldwork contexts (see Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020:36). Because most archaeological training and advancement remain contingent on fieldwork, these negative experiences can function as a form of gatekeeping (Heath-Stout and Hannigan Reference Heath-Stout and Hannigan2020).
Many survey respondents affirmed the notion that, to be an archaeologist, they felt pressure to conform to a certain type of field culture. A white woman graduate student shared, “There is . . . this widespread idea that ‘what happens [in the field] must remain there,’ and so I don’t believe we have the habit of signaling the things that happen [in] the field, particularly if it takes place in another country.” This notion that “what happens in the field stays in the field” colloquializes the otherwise unspoken expectation that personal and professional accountability do not apply equally during fieldwork (see also Blackmore et al. Reference Blackmore, Drane, Baldwin and Ellis2016). Other respondents noted that clear policies in other contexts, like offices or classrooms, were “completely disregarded in the field” or that “the field is a weird place where you feel removed from institutional expectations and regulations.”
The idea that the field is subject to different norms was prominent in narrative responses to the survey. Such ambiguity often manifests as offhand commentary and jokes (Leighton Reference Leighton2020). On the survey, an Indigenous man and field archaeologist wrote, “In my witnessed and personal experiences, I have [more] often seen people making more rude and crude jokes than actually [engaging] in violence or sexual violence. Jokes can usually be either sexual in nature or race based.” Another respondent, a white woman working as a CRM supervisor, wrote, “I have been on sites where there are repeated [comments] made which are sexist . . . but also homophobic, transphobic, and racist. . . . As a field technician, I never felt comfortable speaking up or reporting these comments. Because no one else addressed them, or others participated in them, it often felt like this was part of the ‘culture’ of archaeological fieldwork and I could either accept that or find another type of work.” References to bending the rules, being “chummy,” being told to “relax,” and not feeling comfortable speaking up all point to gray zones where unprofessional and harmful behaviors are fostered, ignored, and normalized.
The field is also characterized as a place where archaeological “fit” is weighed and measured. As Moser (Reference Moser2007) points out, fitting into fieldwork includes gendered expectations that idealize masculinity (see also Brown Reference Brown2018). One interviewee, a white nonbinary CRM practitioner, discussed pressure to prove themself as part of the crew. After they described their earliest professional fieldwork in a predominately male field crew, the interviewer asked how that influenced the group dynamic. The interviewee answered, “I know I internalized this as well . . . not essentially ‘be a man’ but kind of like, just go out there, do the work, prove them wrong. So having to try and prove yourself as someone better than a more male person.” This interviewee shared other experiences, from having their expertise dismissed by colleagues and construction workers to being placed in dangerous situations. In one instance, a male colleague told them that they should have been assaulted for finding themselves in a particular scenario. They also witnessed male superiors ridicule female-identifying archaeologists for starting families. These experiences affected their view of specific CRM companies and contributed to a whisper network among women and nonbinary archaeologists about where to seek work.
Ableism and precarity (e.g., personal, financial, and employment status) contribute to gray zones in the field, particularly in CRM. Seeking accommodation for a disability during fieldwork can expose a person to stigma and exclusion (Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2022:9). Stereotypical notions of strength, suitability, and endurance can be used to gaslight and exclude archaeologists with short- and long-term disabilities. Another interviewee, a white LGBTQAI2S+ woman and graduate student, detailed how her disillusionment with CRM grew from witnessing racism and sexism and being paid less than male colleagues. When she developed an injury, she feared losing her job and felt ashamed for being physically unable to meet employer expectations:
I started to get an injury, [a] bad elbow from lifting too many screening buckets. And then I just saw how other people were treated . . . you get injured, you don’t get called back. . . . So, I started just using my elbow more and more, and continuing on, and it just got the point where my injury was just terrible. Up to this day, can’t lift buckets or anything of weight. And when I told [my supervisor] I couldn’t go into the field anymore, I just didn’t get that callback; I knew what was happening. I knew the conversations that were happening behind the scenes. And I hated myself because I was weak, and I couldn’t be in the field anymore, and I just felt so ashamed. And I blamed a lot of it on me.
This interviewee eventually left archaeology.
The threat of lost jobs or wages associated with seasonal or temporary fieldwork keeps people in the gray zone. Fear of financial consequences inhibits speech and action to counter discrimination, whether it is witnessed or experienced. One survey respondent, an Indigenous woman and faculty member, wrote that she witnessed “very aggressive racism” from a field director and CRM company owner against Indigenous technicians, but that “they said nothing because they really need the job and pay.” When workers are treated as replaceable, their performance can become contingent on their ability to “keep up” or “keep quiet” in the field, and they may question whether they are the problem, rather than it being an unjust system of employment.
Gray zones also exist in academic fieldwork, and field schools—for many, their first fieldwork experience—are no exception. It is often students who find themselves vulnerable and targeted. One interviewee described repeatedly experiencing verbal harassment and denial of accommodations by a field school director, a woman who bullied her until she felt unable to continue with her degree and career. She was advised by a trusted superior in her university not to file a complaint. Another interviewee, a white LGBTQAI2S+ woman and graduate student, described her field school abroad, sharing that she “was sexually harassed a lot and . . . was told, ‘That’s just what happens.’” During the same project, she was later assaulted by a local community member. In shock, she discussed her experiences: “Another girl on the field school . . . told me that it couldn’t possibly have happened to me because no one had touched her, so I was making it up for attention. And then she said that I shouldn’t talk about it to anybody. . . . I just didn’t know who to talk to, I wasn’t told who to go to with that stuff, so I didn’t.”
For students, whether perpetrators are supervisors, peers, or community members, a lack of clear guidance and tangible consequences for harassment can set the tone for future fieldwork (Colaninno et al. Reference Colaninno, Lambert, Beahm and Drexler2020). This person’s experience reveals how gray zones can frame how students respond to peers in crisis, demonstrating that enculturation into cultures of silence happens early in archaeological careers.
Drinking Culture as a Gray Zone
The hard-drinking archaeologist has long been a disciplinary trope of archaeological culture (Moser Reference Moser2007:257). The gray zones of fieldwork are complicated and exacerbated by the drinking culture of archaeology, but it also permeates social and networking spaces like parties and conferences. As one interviewee put it, “The pressure to engage in drinking and social activities, that’s not only in the field. [As a] young archaeologist, I found that same kind of pressure on summer jobs and in the university setting.” Nearly half of our 26 interviewees brought up, unprompted, the topic of drinking culture. They described compulsory trips to strip clubs, drinking during field projects, and negative behaviors by peers, supervisors, students, and professors.
Some survey respondents and interviewees described alcohol consumption as a litmus test for belonging in archaeology. A Latin American woman and graduate student wrote that she was forced to sit at a different table from men on a project for refusing to drink alcohol, resulting “in being left out of research opportunities.” In cases like this, drinking becomes a way to secure a place in archaeological circles, and professional “fit” is measured based on personal social choices, rather than knowledge or skill (see Leighton Reference Leighton2020; Moser Reference Moser2007).
Heavy drinking is often implicated in creating and normalizing the conditions for harassment and abuse in archaeology. Intoxication is used to excuse or minimize bad behavior. One interviewee, a white woman and graduate student, shared that pressure to drink during her field school was tied to performing masculinity (see Moser Reference Moser2007). Being “able to drink and keep up with the guys was kind of another sign of being one—that you belonged, you know?” she shared. She then described a widely witnessed incident of harassment by a fellow student who followed her back to her room after a night out:
[It] was really terrifying. And everyone chalked it up to being too drunk and . . . laughed it off. . . . You kind of don’t want to be the person that is making the trip not fun. So, you know, it’s the sort of thing that you kind of just pretend didn’t happen? Or you ignore it and [say], “I’ll just be a little more careful when I drink, or maybe it was my fault,” kind of thing. . . . You feel like you must have done something. Especially when male peers . . . are kind of laughing it off too. You don’t want to be accused of making a big deal out of nothing.
Here and elsewhere in the narrative data, alcohol use blurred boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate conduct. It facilitated the framing of harassment as “not a big deal.” Remaining in the “in group” demanded participating in or condoning overconsumption and maintaining silence about transgressions. This example happened during a field project but reflects similar stories in our dataset about conferences, parties, and other contexts. Drinking, of course, often occurs in social settings and has implications for ethical relationships, which we discuss next.
Relationships as Gray Zones
Gray zones transcend contexts like fieldwork, conferences, or parties. They can also operate through inequitable and unethical relationships, blurred professional and hierarchical boundaries, and overt and nuanced pressures to conform among peers. For many archaeologists, relationships are a powerful factor determining whether they see themselves belonging in archaeology. Mentorship, representation, and community are extraordinarily positive forces within the discipline (Rivera Prince et al. Reference Jordi A., Blackwood, Brough, Landázuri, Leclerc, Barnes and Douglass2022). But when relationships operate as gray zones, the opposite can be true: Relationships can easily become contexts in which subtle and overt aggressions occur, become perpetuated, and affect archaeological careers.
Survey data showed that those who reported experiencing harm most often held less power in the relationship and in archaeology more broadly; they included students, archaeologists of color, women, and early-career, disabled, and LGBTQAI2S+ archaeologists. Perpetrators were most often identified as persons in authority, followed closely by peers. Although perpetrators included a small percentage of women, they were overwhelmingly identified as men across all categories of negative experiences (Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020:35; see also Radde Reference Radde2018), indicating that gray zones do not just silence victims but also perpetuate harmful behaviors along lines of privilege. We turned to the qualitative interview data for further insights into these quantitative results.
In relationships, not every instance of abuse is clear within the letter of the law. In some cases, actions like refusing sexual advances or calling out harmful behavior led to aggressions that are less easily coded as harassment. Perpetrators in positions of power can leverage relationships with mentees, employees, and others to shape or sink careers. One of our interviewees, a white woman in a senior position, detailed multiple experiences in which she and fellow students were propositioned or harassed by academic supervisors as graduate students. When women said no, their supervisors often became cold or refused to take them to the field or comment on their thesis drafts. She termed this “psychological harassment” and noted that it felt just as alienating and frightening as other forms of harassment, with real consequences for careers and mental health. When she did eventually file a complaint about psychological harassment, she lost her job and networks, despite assurances that there would be no retaliation.
Early-career interviewees and survey respondents reported similar experiences with senior archaeologists at conferences, in graduate programs, and in the field. Some of these instances were explicit harassment and assault, and others were more subtle forms of gaslighting that caused the interviewees to question their experiences and judgments. Speaking of her first conference, one interviewee, a LGBTQAI2S+ white woman and graduate student, shared,
I remember being in a room waiting for a session to start, alone, and an older man came up to me. He must have been in his fifties . . . and I appreciated someone noticing that I was alone and had come talk to me. And he was like, “Who do you work for?” and I said [my supervisor’s name], and I mentioned that I had worked in my undergrad for this other supervisor. . . . He looked me up and down and he said, “Oh yeah, that makes sense; I hear he likes blondes.” Which is not true at all, my undergrad supervisor was very jolly and kind, and never sexualized [me]. . . . I just suddenly felt so devalued as an academic. And this was my first conference, and I was like, this man . . . injected something into my imposter syndrome that I didn’t even know existed, and that’s so frustrating.Footnote 5
Interactions like this can lead individuals to question their place in archaeology. Other interviewees shared experiences of persistent bullying, unsolicited online messages, reports of misconduct that were dismissed, verbal abuse, having their contributions ignored by senior colleagues, or having senior colleagues take credit for their work. On the survey, an Indigenous man and avocational archaeologist reported experiencing verbal harassment, violence, and discrimination by a professor that resulted in “uncertainty related to my future and my abilities” and perhaps a rejection of his application to graduate school. Another survey respondent, a white woman in CRM and a graduate program, wrote that after a negative experience with a supervisor,
The person in the position of authority threatened my career as an archaeologist. I suffered of psychological stress for several months, because I was afraid he would sully my reputation so that I would not be able to work. . . . I was telling myself that I should have been stronger psychologically and that I should not let these things get to me. I am still afraid to encounter that individual in conferences or other situations. I can also mention that my colleague, [who] experienced the same situation, stopped working in archaeology.
These are cases of senior archaeologists undermining junior colleagues’ intelligence, experience, safety, and prospects, all with no clear professional recourse. Such relationships and interpersonal interactions take psychological and professional tolls and can end careers.
Not all negative experiences are with people in power. Relationships with peers and supervisees also are implicated in harmful behavior. The act of speaking up can cast someone as a “troublemaker,” as one survey respondent put it. The same interviewee who shared the conference experience earlier also described more harrowing experiences, which included being stalked by a male colleague online. When friends asked why she never cut off contact with the perpetrator, she explained, “I was worried that if I made him angry, he would leverage something in the community, because he knows people that I know who work in my region.” Another interviewee who experienced peer harassment said that she never reported incidents because “you don’t want to offend the sort of sense of belonging that you’ve built. . . . You don’t know what the implications are from your peers. Like if they go on to do something else you don’t want to spoil those relationships.”Footnote 6 As gray zones, inequitable relationships with peers or authority figures in the archaeological community often leave victims reluctant to report because of self-doubt and the fear of damaging other relationships and career prospects.
Repercussions for reporting was one of the most commonly coded themes in the narrative responses to our survey. A Jewish woman and senior CRM archaeologist cited multiple experiences that had long-term impacts on her professional and mental life: “I was both bullied and sexually assaulted. I feared reporting due to risk to my career, which later turned out to be founded.” In these and other instances, awareness of potential retaliation and fractured relationships informed decisions about whether to report harassment.
In addition to a reluctance to engage in formal reporting processes, the pressure to remain silent is linked to pressure to conform, which itself is based in exclusionary norms in archaeology. As one interviewee, a white LGBTQAI2S+ man and graduate student, put it, “You had to conform otherwise . . . you will be tossed aside. That will be a recurring theme . . . in everything I will say today. To the extent that most people I knew that didn’t fit in that mold . . . [they] ended up distancing themselves. Some came back; some changed their field completely.”
This choice to conform or leave the discipline reflects how relationships are leveraged to determine “fit” within archaeology (see also Leighton Reference Leighton2020). This interviewee went on to say, “Even if people are not mean, it’s heavy to always be surrounded by people who don’t look like you.” The pressure to conform disproportionately affects minoritized archaeologists, particularly when disciplinary “fit” remains based on white, heteropatriarchal notions of belonging.
The experience of navigating microaggressions present in professional relationships weighs heavily on archaeologists who do not present as white, cisgender, heterosexual, male, and able-bodied. The effects of these experiences are cumulative. In her survey response, a self-identified mixed-race woman and graduate student said, “My experiences have been hard to define but are often connected to the fact that I am female AND visibly mixed-race. . . . I constantly field questions about my ethnic background and have to hear what various peers and strangers think about my appearance/identity. I suspect their comfort with doing this is because I am female. It is usually subtle and systemic.”
Another interviewee, a man from a racialized minority and a senior CRM archaeologist, did not perceive racism to have been a major obstacle in his archaeological career but commented on the toll it took to respond to racist remarks from colleagues and the public: “I know a couple [of] colleagues who like to call me racist names just to get a rise out of me, and I usually ignore it because I get tired of it. I’m tired of fighting every single racist act out there. It’s very taxing.” The problem of discriminatory comments framed as jokes or naïve questions extends well beyond the field and into professional relationships. Such words are not benign for those forced to do the emotional labor of fielding them.
Gray zones also persist because of discriminatory employment practices, from hiring to differential treatment in the workplace, which are chalked up to arbitrary decisions or processes. For minoritized archaeologists, rejection from jobs, exclusion from opportunities, and double standards occur without acknowledgment or articulated reasons. They are left questioning why professional relationships failed to develop or disappeared. One interviewee, a woman from a racialized minority in CRM, highlighted repeated instances of alienation, unequal treatment and pay, lack of respect, and lack of recognition for her work. When she relayed these concerns to her supervisors, they were dismissed or ignored, and she ended up feeling she had no choice but to leave her position. Although she had known archaeologists of different ethnicities in her university, she encountered few in professional settings. She described not being called for interviews despite years of experience, contrasting her experience with white male peers who had not faced the same issues. She added, “Honestly, my interest in archaeology has decreased a little bit. I still love archaeology; I still want to be in it; it’s just I find [it] pretty impossible to even be called in for an interview. . . . Maybe I chose the wrong career path or . . . maybe it’s a good career path for somebody else but not just for me.”
After repeated negative experiences, the interviewee questioned whether she was right for archaeology, rather than vice versa. The lack of clarity also led her to question whether her difficulty forging professional relationships and receiving callbacks for jobs was related to her ethnicity, her gender, or her previous work complaint in the small world of CRM. This illustrates a particularly insidious aspect of gray zones: racism, misogyny, colonialism, repercussions for reporting, and gaslighting operate in lockstep as barriers to the discipline. We cannot separate the reasons we are losing talented archaeologists from minoritized backgrounds—and we are indeed losing them.
Experiences in professional relationships shared by Indigenous respondents also illustrate racialized discrimination, often leading Indigenous archaeologists to leave the discipline. Multiple Indigenous survey respondents reported that they had their archaeology qualifications questioned in professional and academic settings. An Indigenous man and CRM archaeologist shared, “I have had people . . . assuming that I was hired because of being Indigenous [versus] actually having education and training.”Footnote 7 An Indigenous woman and undergraduate reported, “I felt more discrimination for being First Nations than anything else. It didn’t matter how educated I am. I . . . couldn’t possibly have gone to school for arch [sic], let alone pass and actually know a thing or two. That was infuriating and was why I quit.” Indigenous respondents also reported double standards in education and difficulty developing supportive relationships with professors and supervisors. An Indigenous CRM archaeologist wrote that they had been given less time than a white student to finish an honors thesis, with no writing support. Another survey respondent, an Indigenous woman and undergraduate student, wrote, “I felt more welcomed at the First Nations Studies department rather than in Archaeology. . . . I feel like no one would listen if I did say anything, I would just be the ‘angry Indian.’” She was denied a spot in the field school, forcing her to graduate with an archaeology minor rather than a major. “So, my future [in archaeology] is uncertain,” she concluded.
Without addressing the significant barriers that minoritized archaeologists face when entering and succeeding in the discipline, archaeology’s future is uncertain—in other words, we are doomed to keep replicating the colonial structures on which the discipline is built. Obstacles include harassment but also the costs of archaeological education and the precarity of low-wage positions, highlighting the need for intersectional approaches to economic and social barriers. The problem with gray zones is that they function within and around bureaucratic solutions to these issues. There is a lot that needs fixing, from holding perpetrators accountable, to personal and professional accountability, to addressing the structural inequities and cultural ideals that underlie our practice. So where do we go from here?
Discussion and Recommendations
Gray zones operate to obscure violence, normalize abuse, and perpetuate systemic issues in the discipline. They function to surround violence and those who perpetrate it in a false ambiguity. There is nothing ambiguous about harm, personal or structural. To create pathways to accountability, we all need to do the work of exposing and expelling the gray zones that haunt the discipline. The work of making archaeology more equitable and safe rests on our collective ability to vanquish the ill-defined spaces that protect perpetrators from consequences, to bring those spaces into public view, and to name the ways that their existence is scaffolded by white supremacy, misogyny, colonialism, anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity, ableism, and homophobia (d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021; see also Blackmore et al. Reference Blackmore, Drane, Baldwin and Ellis2016; Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020; Ike et al. Reference Ike, Miller and Omoni Hartemann2020). As Battle-Baptiste (Reference Battle-Baptiste2011:20) wrote, “To be an archaeologist at this moment comes with an enormous responsibility” to recognize and confront the ways we work, ethically and intentionally, in relation to other people and within broader systems of oppression.
Drawing on narrative data from our interviews and survey, we explored how gray zones operate in three contexts of archaeological practice: the field, drinking culture, and relationships. Far from being mutually exclusive, these contexts perpetuate each other in continual feedback loops. Fieldwork is widely construed as a central component of archaeological careers and a touchstone for archaeological culture more broadly. The field can be, without care, a liminal space that blurs professional and behavioral boundaries or an exclusionary space that idealizes a white, male, able-bodied stereotype of the archaeologist. But none of this has to be true: the field is also a powerfully generative place precisely because it is where relationships, capacities, and communities are formed in archaeology. Fieldwork can reflect the diversity and inclusion we want to see in the discipline more broadly, but this means addressing issues of archaeological field culture; the economic precarity of temporary or seasonal employment; and ableism, sexism, and racism, among other forms of discrimination. Ethical leadership and conscious shifts in long-standing field practices, as well as an attention to the ways power and relationships contribute to gray zones in archaeological practice, have the potential to bring transformative change to the way we think about and conduct ourselves in the field.
A culture that celebrates alcohol consumption enhances the already ripe conditions for gray zones in archaeology, helping make expectations unclear and facilitating gaslighting and victim-blaming. The normalization of drinking culture in archaeology and all that goes with it, from exclusion to the minimization of harmful behavior, means that archaeology cannot yet be a safe place for all its members. But this also does not have to be true: we can set clear boundaries, promote ethical behavior, stop glorifying alcohol consumption, and still have fun and form strong friendships and communities (with or without the occasional drink).
Careers are built on relationships. Gray zones persist in relationships in part because ethical expectations are undermined by power, hierarchies, and performative informality (Leighton Reference Leighton2020). Gray zones occur when relationships are abused or leveraged, intentionally or carelessly, to the detriment of others. Power and privilege play a significant role. In some cases, perpetrators are persons with power, under the protection of powerful organizations, or both. In other cases, perpetrators are simply protected by privileges upheld in systems of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and colonialism (Bondura et al. Reference Bondura, Darwent, Halmhofer, Heppner, Killgrove, Marie Pageau, Smith, Supernant and Walder2019; Collective Change 2019; d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021; Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020; Kelvin and Hodgetts Reference Kelvin and Hodgetts2020; Voss Reference Voss2021a, Reference Voss2021b). Issues like harassment or professional repercussions for reporting perpetuate gray zones in which survivors must weigh their future in archaeology against their personal safety and well-being. Narratives from the survey and interviews show how persistent inequities—fueled by gaslighting, abuses of power, informality, and professional repercussions—can destroy promising careers, especially among women and minoritized archaeologists, and particularly those who occupy multiple marginalized identity categories. But this also does not have to be true: strong support systems and ethical relationships make significant, positive differences in archaeological careers. Many of us owe our careers to supportive mentors and communities in academia, CRM, and archaeology’s many sectors.
Next, we offer and reinforce some practical recommendations based on suggestions from the survey and interviews. They center the need for clear communication, guidelines, accountability, diversity, and leadership in archaeology, as well as a cultural shift to eliminate the blurred boundaries and ethical ambiguity of gray zones. Yet, bureaucratic solutions alone are not sufficient to address archaeology’s gray zones: a sustained cultural shift is needed in the discipline.
Clear and Actionable Guiding Documents
Many participants in this study pointed to the role that clear, accessible, and actionable “guiding documents” (e.g., policies, guidelines, and codes of conduct) play in promoting equity in archaeological practice. Articulating ethical expectations early and communicating them often across all archaeological contexts (e.g., field, classrooms, workplaces, conferences) foster communication, reassert the professional nature of these spaces, and shift the norms for interpersonal interactions within them. Guiding documents should provide clear pathways toward accountability for perpetrators and recourse for survivors, as well as channels for people to speak when they witness harm. Policies must also recognize that, even with clear guidelines, survivors may have reasons to remain silent. The responsibility to name and counter abuse also rests with those in positions of power and privilege (Voss Reference Voss2021a).
Although regional and national archaeological associations have developed guiding documents to address issues of ethics and equity, localized and even site-specific policies also play an important role. Intentional construction of policies can foster inclusivity and ethical expectations while training and mentoring the next generation of archaeologists (Nelson et al. Reference Nelson, Rutherford, Hinde and Clancy2017). Continuous review of guiding documents and conversation around standards are critical for aligning disciplinary expectations with ever-evolving social conditions. In addition to formal policies, many projects, programs, and workplaces also benefit from the collaborative creation of “principles of community” or other consensus-based, context-specific principles to foster and sustain an ethics-centered culture of practice (Lyons et al. Reference Natasha, Supernant and Welch2019; see also Colaninno et al. Reference Colaninno, Lambert, Beahm and Drexler2020).Footnote 8
Engagement with ethical standards should not begin and end with documents (Markert Reference Markert2021). Ethics training should happen early and be ongoing. A productive approach at individual (e.g., field directors, instructors, educators) and institutional (e.g., societies, unions, large CRM companies, universities) levels is to incorporate scenario-based training that provides relatable examples and appropriate responses. Institutions and disciplinary organizations can play a role in developing scenario-based ethics training that individuals and teams can then incorporate into their own training and expectation-setting efforts (e.g., the Society for American Archaeology Ethics Bowl).
Effective and Accessible Accountability Mechanisms
Many of our survey respondents and interviewees also highlighted the need for effective reporting mechanisms, clear and fair processes for holding perpetrators accountable, and a demonstrated commitment to following through on consequences. The bureaucratic frameworks that exist (e.g., Title IX, internal HR processes) do not adequately address a full range of harms, and when they do apply, they often require time and emotional labor for survivors (d’Alpoim Guedes et al. Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021). Even in cases of clear abuse or discrimination, survivors may perceive their experiences as “unreportable” or overly burdensome to report, as described by several of our interviewees. Some interviewees found their experiences dismissed or ignored when they did report them; for one interviewee, an archaeologist from a minoritized background, this led to them leaving their job. Equitable mechanisms require striking a balance between due process and follow-through on appropriate, proportional consequences while taking care not to demand too much of survivors.
In the absence of a one-size-fits-all solution, creative responses will likely combine local action with external procedures. External grievance procedures and mechanisms for accountability, like those provided by Title IX in the United States, the Register of Professional Archaeologists, or unions like those recently formed in Ontario (LiUNA Local 3000) and Quebec (SNAQ-CSN), play an important role but are not without their limitations (e.g., constrained to membership or work contexts, issues with accessibility, or the burdens of bureaucracy). To dispel gray zones, conveying internal commitments to reporting procedures and tangible outcomes is essential. Reporting mechanisms only work in an environment where people feel comfortable, supported, and safe to report. Establishing that environment must be a primary goal. To accomplish this, archaeologists must continue to explore ways to implement trauma-informed practices and communicate them clearly in every archaeological context (see Voss Reference Voss2021a). Weekly group reflection can be a dynamic way to convey collective support and address expectations for ethical behavior at the local level.
Modeling Ethical Leadership
Ethical leadership and mentorship demand active attention to the diverse ways that archaeologists experience fieldwork and navigate the discipline, as well as an active commitment to dismantling the barriers that exist for marginalized members of our community. The privilege of holding leadership positions carries the responsibility of modeling ethical behavior. This requires thoughtful, reflexive, and intentional engagement with positionality and power. Professional hierarchies exist and are unavoidable in most contexts, but such hierarchies should not extend to a person’s ability to communicate, seek accountability, and be held accountable in a relationship. As Colaninno and colleagues (Reference Colaninno, Lambert, Beahm and Drexler2020:116) show, professional hierarchies that foster high levels of dependency on higher positions (e.g., field directors) create conditions for gray zones and abuses of power; however, there are realistic steps that those in leadership positions can take to deconstruct power structures and distribute power more equitably across the group. Although they focus on field schools in their article, Colaninno and coauthors (Reference Colaninno, Lambert, Beahm and Drexler2020) provide recommendations with broad applicability. These include actively demonstrating equitable leadership, being thoughtful about and attentive to diverse needs, and making sure there are networks, rather than individuals, that can serve as avenues for reporting.
Diversity in the Discipline
Archaeology does not need more data points to show that it has a diversity problem. Our interviewees and respondents from minoritized backgrounds indicate that subtle and overt forms of harassment push people out of archaeological careers. Gray zones are an equity issue because they provide a cultural scaffolding for a disciplinary status quo that centers white supremacy, perpetuating hostile environments for early-career archaeologists who are more likely to leave the discipline and exhausting established professionals who try to enact change from within. This scaffolding exists despite corporate- and university-scale policies designed to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or address harassment. We have internal work to do to address systemic inequality and transform disciplinary culture, individually and collectively (Fryer Reference Fryer2023). At the same time, we must recognize that the barriers to diversifying the discipline are complex and intersectional (Jones Reference Jones2022). Economics play an important role in determining who is able to pursue a career in archaeology, and income inequality between racialized and nonracialized communities in Canada and further afield remains one of many colonial legacies (Block et al. Reference Block, Galabuzi and Tranjan2019).
Education and outreach must also be intersectional, recognizing that archaeology and archaeologists do not exist in an historical vacuum. Gray zones work to erase, ignore, and obscure intersectional experiences. As Alexandra Jones (Reference Jones2022:288) shows, intersectionality is a critical component to “creating an engaged model of archaeological education, a model that recognizes not just vulnerabilities experienced in the past but how students in our communities navigate complicated landscapes of inequality.” Programs like Archaeology in the Community that center historically underrepresented groups through youth education, field schools, and community archaeology programs are doing the work of transforming archaeology from the ground up (Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020; Jones Reference Jones2022).
Other approaches include surveying students and employees about how to create accessible work and learning environments; featuring diverse voices and media in course reading lists (Ike et al. Reference Ike, Miller and Omoni Hartemann2020); using citation as a transformative practice that amplifies diverse voices (Craven Reference Craven2021); providing opportunities for strong and supportive mentorship that reimagines what archaeology is (Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020); supporting hiring practices like cluster hires that support members of historically underrepresented groups and allow students to see themselves reflected in archaeological leadership; and speaking openly, regardless of context, about the ways that archaeology reproduces white supremacy, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy (Fryer Reference Fryer2023). We must also work to address financial barriers to archaeological training and job security in archaeology careers if we want to attract and retain a more diverse workforce. Archaeology is not alone in this; these society-wide challenges affect many disciplines.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. We encourage readers to follow the lead of networks such as the Society for Black Archaeologists, Indigenous Archaeology Collective, Disabled Archaeologists Network, and Queer Archaeology Interest Group who do the important work of showing our discipline otherwise, beyond the constraints of its exclusionary myths and gray zones. Every archaeologist can raise awareness of these coalitions and support their efforts.
Naming Gray Zones and Shifting Archaeological Culture
Although concrete actions are critical and necessary, it remains important to recognize that gray zones operate through, within, and despite bureaucratic frameworks. In some cases, they are built into the structure of bureaucracy itself. Therefore, bureaucratic solutions alone will not solve our gray zone problem: We need a cultural shift. And so, a final critical step is to name gray zones, speak about them, and teach archaeologists how to identify and counter them. To echo Voss (Reference Voss2021a:459), these are “relational interventions” that require us to “speak openly and frankly to other archaeologists about harassment” and other unethical behaviors. Speaking openly about gray zones destabilizes the “culture of silence” (d’Alpoim Guedes Reference D’Alpoim, Jade, Sara and Isabel2021:904) that shields them. The words of our respondents demonstrate that overt and subtle violence persists through gaslighting, abuses of power, exploitation, pressures to conform and perform, systemic discrimination, and drinking culture. Change begins with rendering these things visible and embracing accountability, personally and professionally. This must include not only accountability for perpetrators but also a recognition that it takes collective change to bring about a cultural shift.
The work of shifting archaeological culture is often uncomfortable (Hodgetts et al. Reference Lisa, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020:42–43). Gray zones are deeply connected to current structures of white supremacy, settler colonialism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. Confronting these inequities is difficult for those they benefit and those they harm. As Kelvin and Hodgetts (Reference Kelvin and Hodgetts2020:12) state, “To do unsettling work, we ourselves must feel unsettled.” Shifting archaeological culture means centering ethical and inclusive ways of generating that sense of community and shared experience that so many cite as drawing them into archaeology in the first place—that aspect of fun that creates memorable experiences and career-long friendships. We can still have fun within a culture that replaces blurred boundaries and exclusionary norms with principles of care (Anderson Reference Anderson1996; Lyons et al. Reference Natasha, Supernant and Welch2019; Lyons and Supernant Reference Lyons, Supernant, Supernant, Baxter, Lyons and Atalay2020; Supernant et al. Reference Supernant, Baxter, Lyons and Atalay2020).
Transformation means rebuilding these norms from the ground up, together with expectations of behavior that center people, respectful relationships, and well-being. This will take time and effort. Such change requires us to shift our disciplinary priorities to reward speaking up and care-oriented leadership, recognizing that this may require a simultaneous shift away from traditional priorities like publication records and CRM bottom lines. These are things we will need to grapple with moving forward if we are to achieve our vision of a more equitable future for archaeology. But it is necessary work, and it is work we believe in. We began this article with a list of idioms and sayings that reflect archaeology’s gray zones, and we conclude by saying, we need to rock the boat. Gray zones have haunted the discipline for long enough. Ridding ourselves of them will open possibilities for new ways of conceptualizing and doing archaeology.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to members of the Canadian Archaeological Association Equity and Diversity Working Group Advisory Board for helping craft the original survey—Gary Copeland, Alicia Hawkins, Elsa Perry, Farid Rahemtulla, Meghan Walley, and Alison Wylie. Thanks also to the many people who took time to complete it. Our interview participants were generous in sharing their experiences, some of which were very difficult. We are so thankful for their time and candor. Many thanks to Anne Helene Kerbiriou and Natalia Parra for completing translations of our abstract and keywords. Thank you also to the colleagues who took the time to read and provide feedback on this manuscript, particularly our three reviewers, whose thoughtful commentary helped strengthen this article.
Funding Statement
Financial support from the Faculty of Social Science at Western University and from Simon Fraser University’s SSHRC Small Explore Research Grants made this work possible.
Data Availability Statement
The interview and survey data used for this article are restricted to protect the anonymity of project participants, as stipulated in the project’s research ethics protocol approved by the Non-Medical Research Ethics Board at the University of Western Ontario.
Competing Interests
The authors declare none.
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