Peri A. Johnson

Peri A. Johnson is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Chicago, affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on survey archaeology in Turkey, particularly the second through first millennia BCE, addressing colonial extraction, illicit antiquities, ecological destruction under capitalism, and decolonizing archaeological practices. She works on a book project examining archaeology as extraction in the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic.

Education:

• PhD in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, University of Pennsylvania
• BA in Classics, Reed College

Research Interests:

Dr. Johnson’s work critically engages with the politics of fieldwork methodologies, technologies derived from mining/military applications, and the legal frameworks governing archaeological practice. She interrogates how colonial legacies and neoimperial contexts shape knowledge production, particularly amid climate change and the carbon economy. Her fieldwork emphasizes ethical decolonization of archaeological practices in a warming world.

Labs/Projects:

Associated with the Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape project, exploring regional archaeological patterns and human-environment interactions.