Call for Papers: Advances in Archaeological Labor Management

Issue Editors: Allison Mickel & Amany Abd El Hameed

Advances in Archaeological Practice, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Society for American Archaeology, invites submissions for a forthcoming themed issue on “Advances in Archaeological Labor Management,” to be published in August 2026.

• Abstract Submission Deadline: September 1, 2025

• Full Papers Due: December 1, 2025

• Publication Date: August 2026

Submit Your Abstract via Google Form.

About this Themed Issue

Archaeology entails fieldwork, labwork, digital work, teamwork– all sorts of physical, intellectual, and emotional labor that has only recently begun to be discussed explicitly and extensively in published discourse. In the earliest days of archaeology, excavation and survey archives offered glimpses of locally-hired laborers, and the European and American archaeologists administering such projects at times reflected on their experiences both with resident communities in general and specifically with the workers hired from these communities.  Recent years have seen a phenomenal proliferation of research on archaeological labor, doing the important work of either rendering visible the ‘invisible technicians’ of archaeological work (Baird 2024; Bandović 2019; Cline 2023; Diaz 2024; Doyon 2014; Everill 2012; Holley-Kline 2022; Irving 2017; Leighton 2016; Quirke 2010; Reynolds-Kaye 2022; Rowland 2014), or analyzing the conditions underpinning the mistreatment or unsafety of archaeological workers (Bradford and Crema 2022; Everill 2012; Flewellen et al. 2021; Franklin 1997; Greenberg and Sulimani 2024; Hamilakis 2015; Heath-Stout 2024; Heath-Stout and Hannigan 2020; Irving 2022; Leighton 2020; Meyers et al. 2018; Mickel 2019, 2021; Paynter 1983; Speakman et al. 2018; Troilo 2024; Voss 2021; Wong and Pálá Gutiérrez 2025; Zorzin 2011, 2015). Meanwhile, implementable suggestions for how we recruit, hire, onboard, train, and conclude relationships with archaeological workers have tended to be sparing in archaeological literature.

In this themed issue, we hope to collect a set of papers offering some possible paths forward, toward a safer, more inclusive, more equitable archaeology. We aim for this issue to have transnational, intersectional representation and to cover a wide variety of types of archaeological labor (academic, private, and governmental; student and professional; field, lab, classroom, office, and beyond). Our goal is for this issue to build on and contribute to an expanding corpus of practice-oriented scholarship in our field, taking stock of what we know and moving forward to what we can do. We ask authors not only to characterize harms done to workers but moreover to think about who is positioned to act, in specific ways, in order to interrupt those harms. We hope that this issue will be able to provide insight both into the unique, particular experiences of workers in different places and positions as well as unexpected global solidarities of archaeologists working under shared political economic circumstances. Most of all, we hope that this issue—rather than imagining itself as a decisive and final set of best practices in archaeological labor management—is generative, inspiring even more creative approaches to building an archaeology that really works.

We are particularly interested in contributions that:

• Outline practical approaches to hiring archaeological workers, onboarding, training, evaluating performance, and concluding employment in order to produce fair and inclusive working environments.

• Discuss real-world experiences of organizing archaeological labor, reforming workplace policies, or restructuring project frameworks to improve working conditions.

• Shed light on often-overlooked labor settings, including museums, archives, digital work, and community-led initiatives.

• Come from underrepresented contexts or marginalized voices.

• Demonstrate how race, class, gender, nationality, and disability affect the working conditions and career paths of archaeological laborers.

• Highlight solidarities among archaeological workers across different regions and the shared economic pressures they face.

• Present creative approaches to meaningful decision-making.

• Respond to ongoing conversations in archaeology about the invisibilization of archaeological labor.

• Are pragmatic, direct, and strategic about power and the political economy of archaeology.

We also call for abstracts for a potential Digital Review on a topic related to this themed issue.  Such a Digital Review might, for example, consider how technological changes, such as advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and automation, may have various impacts on archaeological labor in the future.  Other related topics on the intersection of digital technologies and labor are also encouraged.

Submission Guidelines

By September 1, interested contributors should submit a structured abstract of 250-300 words here. This abstract should describe a problem in archaeological labor management, the experiences and recommendations of the authors, and the potential impact or broader implications for improving the conditions of archaeological labor. ‘Improvement’ can be defined in many ways, but should be described explicitly in each article, and should be rooted in workers’ well-being or richer archaeological knowledge, not cost savings or efficiency.

Authors will be notified by September 8 of an invitation to submit a full paper to this themed issue. Full papers will be due December 1.

Papers in Advances in Archaeological Practice can be research articles (around 6000 words), how-to articles (around 3500 words), or a Digital Review (around 2000 words). Interested authors are encouraged to review the Instructions for Authors in Advances in Archaeological Practice.

The peer review and revision process will take place between December 2025 and May 2026, with final publication scheduled for August 2026.

Authors selected for the themed issue will receive editorial mentorship and support throughout the writing and peer review process. Authors whose abstracts are not selected will be encouraged to submit to the Advances blog or a future regular issue.

We encourage submissions from authors across all sectors, in all work settings, from all regions and at all career stages. We are aiming to include papers from as globally representative a set of authors as possible, and to invite consideration of the work or labor of archaeological activities not traditionally considered as such. If you are uncertain if your submission will be a good fit for this themed issue, please reach out directly to the co-editors of this issue.

Contact and Queries

For questions, clarifications, or to discuss potential submissions, please feel free to reach out to the issue co-editors:

• Dr. Allison Mickel – amickel3@gatech.edu

• Amany Abd El Hameed – amanyamer0101@gmail.com

We welcome informal inquiries and are happy to support prospective contributors at any stage of the submission process.

We look forward to your contributions and to advancing conversations around ethical, inclusive, and sustainable labor practices in archaeology.

Works Cited

Baird, J. A. 2024. Reading field diaries against the grain: the notable and the absent in Syrian archaeology. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 12(1): 20-34.

Bandović, Aleksandar. 2019. Usage of Human Labour in the History of Serbian Archaeology: Three Examples. Etnoantropološki problemi/Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 14(3): 861-887.

Bradford, Danielle J., and Enrico R. Crema. 2022. Risk factors for the occurrence of sexual misconduct during archaeological and anthropological fieldwork. American Anthropologist 124(3): 548-559.

Cline, Eric H. 2023. Invisible excavators: the Quftis of Megiddo, 1925–1939. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 155(4): 316-339.

Cradic, Melissa. 2023. Archaeological Laborers of 20th-Century Palestine. The Ancient Near East today 11(6). 
https://anetoday.org/cradic-nasbeh-laborers/

Diaz, Francisco. 2024. Buried Contributions: Uncovering the Role of the Living Maya in Early Mayanist Archaeology. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

Doyon, Wendy. 2014. On archaeological labor in modern Egypt. In Histories of Egyptology, edited by William Carruthers, pp. 141-156. Routledge, London.

Flewellen, Ayana Omilade, Justin P. Dunnavant, Alicia Odewale, Alexandra Jones, Tsione Wolde-Michael, Zoë Crossland, and Maria Franklin. 2021. “The future of archaeology is antiracist”: Archaeology in the time of black lives matter." American Antiquity 86(2): 224-243.

Franklin, Maria. 1997. Why are there so few black American archaeologists?. Antiquity 71(274): 799-801.

Greenberg, Rafi and Gideon Sulimani. 2024. Maintaining whiteness in archaeology: Hegemonic reproduction in academic versus state archaeological institutions in 21st century Israel. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/17461979241231503

Hamilakis, Yannis. 2015. Archaeology and the logic of capital: pulling the emergency break. International journal of historical archaeology 19: 721-735.

Heath-Stout, Laura E. 2024. Identity, Oppression, and Diversity in Archaeology: Career Arcs. Routledge, London.

Heath-Stout, Laura E., and Elizabeth M. Hannigan. 2020. Affording archaeology: How field school costs promote exclusivity. Advances in Archaeological Practice 8(2): 123-133.

Holley-Kline, Sam. 2022. Archaeology, Wage Labor, and Kinship in Rural Mexico, 1934–1974. Ethnohistory 69(2): 197-221.

Irving, Sarah. 2017. A Tale of Two Yusifs: Recovering Arab Agency in Palestine Exploration Fund Excavations 1890–1924. Palestine exploration quarterly 149(3): 223-236.

Irving, Sarah. 2022. The Kidnapping of ‘Abdullah al-Masri: Archaeology, Labor, and Power at ‘Atlit." Jerusalem Quarterly 91: 8-28.

Leighton, Mary. 2016. Indigenous archaeological field technicians at Tiwanaku, Bolivia: a hybrid form of scientific labor. American Anthropologist 118(4): 742-754.

Leighton, Mary. 2020. Myths of meritocracy, friendship, and fun work: Class and gender in North American academic communities. American Anthropologist 122(3): 444-458.

Meyers, Maureen S., Elizabeth T. Horton, Edmond A. Boudreaux, Stephen B. Carmody, Alice P. Wright, and Victoria G. Dekle. 2018. The context and consequences of sexual harassment in southeastern archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Practice 6(4): 275-287.

Mickel, Allison. 2019. Essential excavation experts: alienation and agency in the history of archaeological labor. Archaeologies 15(2): 181-205.

Mickel, Allison. 2021. Why those who shovel are silent: a history of local archaeological knowledge and labor. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Paynter, Robert. 1983. Field or Factory?: Concerning the Degradation of Archaeological Labor. In The Socio-politics of Archaeology, edited by Joan M. Gero, David M. Lacy and Michael L. Blakey, pp. 31-50. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst.

Quirke, Stephen. 2010. Hidden Hands: Egyptian workforces in Petrie excavation archives 1880-1924. Duckworth, London.

Reynolds-Kaye, Jennifer. 2022. Museum replicas: Recovering the work of making plaster casts of pre-Columbian art. In The Oxford Handbook of Museum Archaeology, edited by Alice Stevenson. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Rowland, Joanne. 2014. Documenting the Qufti Archaeological Workforce. Egyptian Archaeology 44: 10-12.

Speakman, Robert J., Carla S. Hadden, Matthew H. Colvin, Justin Cramb, K. C. Jones, Travis W. Jones, Corbin L. Kling et al. 2018. Choosing a path to the ancient world in a modern market: The reality of faculty jobs in archaeology. American Antiquity 83(1): 1-12.

Troilo, Simona. 2024. Ghosts between the lines: local workers in Italian archaeological excavations in Crete (1899–1910). European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire 31(6): 876-905.

Voss, Barbara L. 2021. Disrupting cultures of harassment in archaeology: Social-environmental and trauma-informed approaches to disciplinary transformation. American Antiquity 86.3 (2021): 447-464.

Wong, Eponine, and Juan Palá Gutiérrez. 2025. The Politics of Archaeological Labour: Pandemic reflections on knowledge production, epistemic injustice, and the material turn in archaeology. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 35(1): 58-73.

Zorzin, Nicolas. 2011. Contextualising contract archaeology in Quebec: political-economy and economic dependencies. Archaeological review from Cambridge 26(1): 119-135.

Zorzin, Nicolas. 2015. Archaeology and capitalism: successful relationship or economic and ethical alienation? In Ethics and archaeological praxis, edited by Cristobal Gnecco and Dorothy Lippert, pp. 115-139. Springer, New York.