Papers by Harriet Richardson Seacat
In an effort to understand how the unincorporated communities of coastal Mobile County were impac... more In an effort to understand how the unincorporated communities of coastal Mobile County were impacted by Hurricane Katrina, this report details the direct effects of the hurricane as well as response and recovery in these communities. An ethnographic overview of the study communities will first be presented, including community and familial ties, cultural geography, and environmental, economic, and political conditions. Direct storm impacts for the study area will then be highlighted. Next, the various recovery efforts led by government and humanitarian organizations will be discussed. Local reactions to each of the concerted efforts will be addressed. The recovery plans of nearby incorporated Bayou La Batre will be mentioned as a comparison with the recovery efforts in the unincorporated study communities. Lastly, the major changes to the communities, following from the direct impact of Hurricane Katrina and the recovery efforts, both public and private, will be detailed. In the final analysis, assessment of the post-Katrina conditions in coastal Mobile County will be compared with conditions in other disaster areas, as explained by other cultural anthropologists, in an effort to understand how the experience in these coastal communities is similar to that of people around the world following a major disaster.
The manner in which cultural resource management (CRM) law should be practiced is not strictly la... more The manner in which cultural resource management (CRM) law should be practiced is not strictly laid out in the language of the policy. The question of whether to recommend a site as designated significant remains the judgment of individual CRM practitioners. Prior to the passing of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act in 1979, three main acts guided CRM professionals in their work. Mandating only investigations of cultural resources before development of federal lands or lands utilizing federal funds, this regulatory period neither allowed for coverage on tribal lands, nor recognized the value of a cultural resource beyond its scientific usefulness. From 1979 to the present, CRM policy has extended its coverage onto tribal lands and expanded to include protection of cultural resources more broadly defined. A particular case found in the small town of Blaine, Washington, offers a unique opportunity to compare CRM practice during the two policy periods that, in this case, produced the same outcome in the 1976 siting and the 1999 expansion of the city's wastewater treatment plant. Critical analysis of relevant documents from the two periods finds that the values did not change significantly from the first period to the second, leading in both cases to the removal of culturally sensitive materials including human remains without consent of the affiliated tribe. Although the second policy period represents a change in the intent and coverage of CRM law, Blaine continued to work under a mainstream value system that neither understands diverse values nor allows time for examination of them, and, ultimately, allowed the same outcome that occurred in the 1970s. Analysis of this case provides commentary on the consideration of the values of local peoples when highly sensitive cultural materials exist within cultural sites. v
Conference Presentations by Harriet Richardson Seacat
Collaboration with traditional communities is central to traditional cultural property studies de... more Collaboration with traditional communities is central to traditional cultural property studies designed for NHPA compliance and can be an important public involvement component of NEPA efforts.
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Papers by Harriet Richardson Seacat
Conference Presentations by Harriet Richardson Seacat