On Making Descendant Communities: Three Case Studies From Historical Bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeologists, museums and universities, journal editorial boards, and academic professional organizations are working toward ethical engagements with human remains, with a focus on descendant community engagement. This article reexamines past and present bioarchaeological descendant community engagement to consider how "descendant community" has been defined. The authors present three case studies to highlight variation in descendant community definition in practice. The first describes the Loretto Bioarchaeology Project, a community-engaged investigation of the lives of Catholic Sisters (1870-1969) based in Denver, Colorado. The Loretto Community of Sisters and affiliates acts as the descendant community, centering 'chosen' family over biological relationships. The second case study discusses two hurricane victims from the 1928 Hurricane, in Belle Glade, Florida. A biological descendant community is impossible given the population of migrant laborers that died in the storm, but a community of care has been developed at a local memorial site for the storm. The third case study considers next-of-kin reported in archival documents pertaining to persons in the Huntington Anatomical Collection (1893-1921), currently housed at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. While next-of-kin documented at decedents' deaths include biological kin, bonds were also created through shared residence and life in New York City, problematizing notions of lineal descendants in the present. The case studies represent a multiplicity of "family," "descendants," and "kin," complicating policies for defining and prioritizing descendant communities and offering examples of paths forward through different iterations of community in bioarchaeological practice.