Charlotte Williams

Profile

I received an MPhil from Cambridge University in archaeology with a specialization in Heritage and Museums, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. My current book project investigates the history of the United Fruit Company’s entanglement in archaeological research in Central America. Once the largest private landholder in Central America, I argue that this American company’ motivations to pursue archaeological work, preservation, and management became entangled in the academic-military-industrial complex.I am also working on a second project that investigates the history of archaeology in the U.S Panama Canal Zone. This research seeks to understand how ancient Panamanian history began to be enfolded into both ownership schemes and conceptualizations of the “greater United States,” in turn problematizing ideas of territory, ownership, and what it meant to dig into an ‘American’ past.

I am deeply committed to community archaeology, shared stewardship, and to public scholarship initiatives that democratize access to knowledge. I have consulted for museums, written essays, produced podcasts, and co-curated community exhibitions in Peru, Belize, and Philadelphia, PA that share narratives in histories in creative formats. My research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Smithsonian, the Penn-Mellon Foundation’s ‘Dispossessions in the America’s’ group, the American Philosophical Society, the Sapiens Public Scholarship Training Fellowship, and the Mellon ‘Democracy and Landscape Initiative Fellowship’ at Dumbarton Oaks, trustees of Harvard University.