Kandice Joyner is a senior at the University of Washington. While in the city she is earning her Bachelors Degree in Anthropology with a focus in Archaeological Sciences and a minor in American Indian Studies. Kandice is a farm kid from the Okanogan Valley in North Central Washington. She grew up driving tractor, riding horses, and raising hay on her family farm. A country girl at heart she is in the outdoors as much as she can. You’ll find her by a campfire with friends or hiking the many trails in Washington.

The outdoors is a big part of why she loves what she studies, but it’s not the only thing. Kandice loves stories; she enjoys listening to people, hearing what they see, and how they interpret the world around us. Not all stories have happy endings, but they do have lessons. Even happy ending stories do.

Oral histories, myth, and beliefs are avenues in which we learn these lessons. The lessons and stories are becoming “validated” tools for reevaluating sites and landscapes, to bring more information about place and personhood. These stories and histories are just as important today as they ever have been. Kandice is passionate about how stories and people collide, especially the cause and effect of place, person, and story on each other. She is passionate about working with people to collectively write a better, multi-vocal story for our children’s children about the land, our people, and our world.

This is where her story and yours collide. She is here as a guest, a student, and hopefully soon a friend, during her stay at field school. The FMIA project was something she knew she wanted to be at while Prof. Gonzalez explained what it was in class last fall. Community based archaeology is the methodology she hopes and aims to work by after graduation.