Rethinking Caribbean Archaeology: Towards an ethical position for a truly decolonial practice

In this paper, we placed ourselves as archaeologists seeking to develop a decolonial position in the Caribbean through a series of best practices that address known regional and world ethical challenges. In the following text, we set out 1) the problems identified during a workshop organized in late 2023, 2) the goals of our network for addressing them, and 3) our priorities for developing ethical archaeological and heritage practices in the Caribbean region. While we are aware that many of these observations are not specific to the Caribbean, we have identified that they do require Caribbean-oriented solutions to be properly and contextually addressed. We do not intend with this paper to provide an extensive list of ethical challenges and their solutions, and neither do we intend to assume that other research projects, not considering the aspects we highlight here, are unethical. The following aims to create the basis for future dialogues and debates about ethics in Caribbean archaeology among local and international researchers based on a series of key challenges and their potential solutions. Lastly, although we recognize the critical role of communities in the development of archaeology, considering that all the authors are professional archaeologists, this paper is based on a disciplinary perspective yet looking towards our ethical and social responsibilities to local communities.