Gullah/Geechee agency: centering cultural knowledge and social equity in heritage at risk

For generations, Gullah/Geechee communities have thrived along the coast from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida. However, climate threats and impacts affect both their communities and historic and cultural sites. Because legacies of racism and systemic injustice can exacerbate climate impacts in many places, social equity must be a guiding tenet of heritage at risk work. Since 2020, the Gullah/Geechee Nation has collaborated with the Florida Public Archaeology Network to protect and sustain Gullah/Geechee heritage, largely through documenting resources in Nassau County, Florida. To date, the Gullah/Geechee Burial Ground Recording Project has recorded 15 new sites and updated seven in the Florida Master Site File, work directed by the community. The project illustrates the importance of engaging with local – and especially descendant – communities as site triage and mitigation strategies will have huge impacts on contemporary communities. Collaborative and community-based archaeological methods guide the project, prioritizing the documentation of sites and histories significant to the Gullah/Geechee people. These methods establish a framework committed to centering cultural perspective to produce a comprehensive record of the past. The framework renders an inclusive historic contextualization leading to site interpretation that amplifies existing community voices and their contribution to the decisions made about the sites..