Occasional Paper Series #53
Actualizing Black Spatial Histories Through a Speculative Youth Archiving Project
by Kaleb Germinaro and Alvin Logan, Jr.
Tales of a Black Archaeology and Anthropology Summer Program
In the summer of 2022, we—Kaleb Germinaro (a recent grad at the time of the project) and Alvin Logan (the former Director of Education at Seattle’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)—collaborated to create a summer program that would support young Black scholars in Seattle in their critical pursuit of archeology. During 2022, Alvin ran quarterly science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workshops with a Seattle-based organization called Mentoring Urban Students and Teens (M.U.S.T). During the spring quarterly meeting, workshop participants investigated Black paleontologists’ contributions to paleontological research. People often confuse paleontology with archeology, and several of the 35 students at the meeting did just that. After the difference between the two sciences was explained, and the workshop about Black paleontology had ended, the students asked to have the opportunity to learn about the archeological history of the Central District area of Seattle, and in particular about the importance of that history to Black people in the Northwest. Some months after the M.U.S.T students made that request, the authors were awarded a $50,000 grant to support a Black archeology summer school in partnership with the Department of Liberatory Education at the Seattle Public Schools.
Dr. Kaleb Germinaro (he/him) is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is a learning scientist, human geographer, educator, and disability researcher. His scholarship focuses on social, political, historical, and geographical dimensions of learning and spatial knowledge. His most recent work takes ethnographic approaches to better understand how transdisciplinary learning experiences prompt shifting spatial orientations, knowledge, and relations across Black, disabled, and youth ecologies and geographies. He enjoys art, animals, bikes and books.
Dr. Alvin Logan, Jr. is the director of Unite:Ed in the College of Education at the University of Washington, Seattle (UW). Dr. Logan also serves as an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology (UW) and affiliate curator for African Culture and Education at the Burke Museum. His research focuses on the intersection of race, educational structures, and identity development. This spans to key issues related to Black youth development, including athletic and academic issues and experiences. Dr. Logan’s academic and administrative work continues to support the growth of educational opportunities for Black and Brown youth in Western Washington