Raising Representation
About
Studies have shown a considerable Gender bias on Wikipedia and that Wikipedia and repositories of crowd sourced information are skewed towards straight, white, able-bodied, men from the Global North. If you take a look, you will find Wikipedia entries in Archaeology and in Classics are no different. The archaeological profession also lacks diversity, despite the existence of a diverse student body. This means that Wikipedia perpetuates already significant inequities in archaeology and classics, and students who are not straight, white, cis men, without disabilities, often struggle to see role models and career possibilities, or feel they have agency to change this.
The first iteration of the Raising Representation project ran throughout the academic year 2024/2025 (and continues in subsequent years in the University of Manchester course "Doing Archaeology 2", and in the Raising CAHAE's Representation Project - see below), addresses these problems by raising representation and recentring student agency in diversifying archaeology, and our sister subjects of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology, by running a series of Wikipedia editathons with University of Manchester students.
In 2024/2025 we presented our initial work to staff and students at the UoM at International Women's Day event on 5th March 2025. However, to truly empower students and make structural change, it is essential that this work extends beyond the University and into the professional arena. Consequently, this project supported our students to lead an editathon and present their findings at the annual Chartered Institute for Archaeologists 2025 conference and in an editathon in conjunction with Historic England.
Subsequently student interns for the project wrote an article on all of the project's findings, published in the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists The Archaeologist publication. The full reference is:
Daud, M., Green, E., Plummer, R., Usher, A., Vitagliani, M. C., Wise, W., and Bhatti, L. 2025. ‘Raising Representation’. The Archaeologist Issue 126 (Autumn 2025). Reading: Chartered Institute of Archaeologists. Pp 19-21.