Honouring displacement, embracing resilience: the displaced Aurarian project in downtown Denver

The tri-institutional Auraria Campus in Downtown Denver occupies land shaped by overlapping histories of displacement – from the forced removal of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute in the nineteenth century to the 1970s urban renewal that displaced a predominantly Hispanic neighbourhood. The Displaced Aurarians Project, a collaboration between descendant communities, archaeologists, and students, seeks to redress these erasures through community-based archaeological fieldwork, commemorative planning, and public storytelling. This case study traces the project’s evolution, including excavation, museum initiatives, and the creation of a Peace and Healing Garden, while foregrounding the ethical and emotional complexities of working within a divided descendant community. Far from seamless, the project reveals how memory, activism, and collaboration can both heal and strain, offering insights into the promises and perils of community-engaged archaeology in contested urban spaces.