Trowelblazers: Bedtime Stories and Radical Manifestoes for Feminist Archaeologists

TrowelBlazers was an unplanned child born in 2013, and like all parents we've been on a steep learning curve full of hard work and mistakes, mixed with wonderful things. But we're now thinking hard about what we want this movement– a whole community has got us here– to grow up into. At the outset we simply wanted to show the gigantic scale of women's contributions in archaeology (and the earth sciences), from a ‘see it, be it’ perspective that recognised the strength of role models. TrowelBlazers built on an existing body of scholarship with the intention to bring it to new audiences, helping them ‘reimagine’ who has always been in our discipline. Despite lacking a project plan, we've evolved from a website to massive collaborative projects. This aspect of co-operation– together with our democratic team structure– echoes one of the key lessons we've learned about feminist engagement in archaeology. Then and now, connectivity is vital. Great power lies in building our own networks of mentoring, training, and collaboration. This talk discusses where we want TrowelBlazers to be in another five years and the challenges we foresee in getting there. Rebecca Wragg Sykes (Independent Scholar), Tori Herridge (Natural History Museum), Brenna Hassett, (Natural History Museum), Suzanne Pilaar Birch, (University of Georgia) TAG Deva 2018 Session: Feminist Archaeologies: Intersectionality, Interpretation, Inclusivity