When Loss Becomes Political: Archaeological Heritage and Destruction in Times of Climate Crisis

Abstract

Climate change threatens not only ecosystems but also systems of memory, territoriality, and social belonging. This article analyzes the effects of environmental transformations on archaeological heritage from a critical perspective. It argues that although the international field linking the cultural dimension and the climate crisis has advanced in recognizing non-economic losses and the cultural dimension of environmental change, it remains limited by technical-managerial approaches that tend to manage destruction without confronting the historical and structural conditions that produce it. In the archaeological field, these limitations become particularly evident given the vulnerability of sites to environmental transformations and their presence within living territories, particularly Indigenous and traditional territories, as well as those in the Global South. Analysis of institutional documents and empirical cases in Brazil, with emphasis on the Doce and Paraopeba river basins, demonstrates how climate risk discourse can be mobilized to relax heritage safeguards and legitimize losses associated with economic interests. It is argued that archaeology, faced with the intensification of socio-environmental losses, must reconfigure its normative, theoretical, and political foundations, shifting its exclusive focus from material preservation to practices of care, historical accountability, and climate justice.