I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. I do research in critical heritage studies and contemporary and historical archaeology, and teach classes in archaeology, cultural anthropology, and four-field anthropology.
My research is framed by questions about the construction of heritage as an organizing force in societies. My most recent research considers ways that residents of historic cities in Palestine/Israel and Greece construct alternative formations of ‘cultural heritage’. I worked with residents of the cities of Acre (‘Akka/Akko) and Rhodes whose sense of ‘heritage’ was configured by histories of dispossession, community relationships, and social justice work. My previous research explored Indigenous peoples’ activism at museums in Canada and the national-colonial mobilization of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the United States and Palestine/Israel. I am developing a new research project on the politics of petro-heritage in western Canada. My interests include heritage and decolonization, the politics of the past, repatriation, and human environmental relations.
From 2022 to 2025, I was the NAGPRA Archival Researcher at the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky. This work involved researching and summarizing the vast documentary record of the museum’s collections as a key component of the University of Kentucky’s responsibilities under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
I was awarded a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2016-2020) for my research on the politics of heritage in Palestine/Israel and Greece, and was awarded the Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction from the Government of Alberta for 2018-19. I have also received funding from the University of Massachusetts Department of Anthropology, the Graduate School at UMass Amherst, and the Fondation Québec Philanthrope/ICOMOS Canada.
I received my PhD and MA in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and my BA in Anthropology from the University of Waterloo.
Email: evant@ucr.edu
Dr. Evan Taylor 