Patricia G Markert

PATRICIA G. MARKERT, then a graduate student at Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York, was awarded a grant in October 2018 to aid research on ‘Combining Archaeology and Linguistic Anthropology to Study Migration and Place-Making in Alsatian Texas,’ supervised by Dr. Ruth Van Dyke. This project combined linguistic anthropology and archaeology to examine place-making in two towns that emerged from a 19th century migration from Alsace to Texas. Despite a shared historic migration, the towns developed into distinct places in the present, particularly in their built landscapes. As such, they present an important case study for understanding how migrations impact place, history, landscape, and identity through time. Since place-making processes involve both material and narrative strategies, the grantee drew methods and theories from archaeology and linguistic anthropology to investigate the intersections between the discursive and physical aspects of place. Using archaeological mapping and GPS, photogrammetry, oral history, narrative analysis, and participatory mapping, the project examined the various ways Alsatian migrants, their descendants, and other residents of the towns related to the historic migration through the built landscape, historical narratives, and community decisions about space and identity. While analyzing the archaeological and linguistic data collected during the project, Bakhtin’s ‘chronotope’ concept (1981) provided a framework for understanding how material and narrative practices create, maintain, and challenge conceptions of place and migration through time. The combination of archaeological and linguistic approaches informs broader anthropological inquiries into human migration and place, particularly as anthropologists work alongside invested and impacted communities.