How epistemic frictions reconfigured the Quebecois contract archaeology normative structure

Abstract

Cultural resource management (CRM), or contract archaeology—archaeological work conducted upstream to land development projects—has come under criticism for enacting neoliberal and colonial agendas. While this criticism is sound, it is also “negative,” in that it entertains an alienating narrative by eschewing resistance attempts by CRM archaeologists. I draw on my own work as an organizer amongst Quebecois CRM workers, as well as on the process of epistemic frictions as the dissenting development of shared truths, to flesh out a “positive” criticism of the practice. Through three frictions that unfolded from 2017 to 2020, I show how CRM workers organized around the collective construction of their knowledge to define the constraints posed by their practice’s hierarchical class structure and reconfigure it through the definition of new norms. These frictions map what epistemic work will be needed to enact anticapitalist and decolonial change.