Transforming Archaeology

Activist Practices and Prospects

Sonya Atalay, Lee Rains Clauss, Randall H McGuire, John R Welch, Sonya Atalay, Lee Rains Clauss, Randall H McGuire, John R Welch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315416519
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Archeologia

Archaeology for whom? The dozen well-known contributors to this innovative volume suggest nothing less than a transformation of the discipline into a service-oriented, community-based endeavor. They wish to replace the primacy of meeting academic demands with meeting the needs and values of those outside the field who may benefit most from our work. They insist that we employ both rigorous scientific methods and an equally rigorous critique of those practices to ensure that our work addresses real-world social, environmental, and political problems. A transformed archaeology requires both personal engagement and a new toolkit. Thus, in addition to the theoretical grounding and case materials from around the world, each contributor offers a personal statement of their goals and an outline of collaborative methods that can be adopted by other archaeologists.

Chapter 1

Transforming Archaeology

Sonya Atalay, Lee Rains Clauss, Randall H. McGuire, and John R. Welch

In this second decade of the twenty-first century, many archaeologists have become tired of the polemical war that ended the twentieth century. They have grown weary of the jousts between the champions of reflexivity and the defenders of positivism, and of the constant skirmishing over what we can know and how we can know it. Increasingly, archaeologists just want to get on with it and do archaeology. The contributors in this volume, however, seek to disrupt both the polemical battle and the complacency of those who would hammer their swords into trowels so that they can dig their square holes in peace. In discussing these points, the contributors to this volume repeatedly came back to a key question. Like Panameno and Nalda (1978) more than thirty-five years earlier, we ask: “Archaeology for whom?” In different parts of the world (see Figure 1.1 on page 21), using varied approaches and methods and in their own voices, each of the authors in this volume came to a similar response: “For those who see archaeology as a way to create collective benefits.”

To bring that vision to reality, we argue that archaeology must be transformed—not updated, rehabilitated, or reformed—but altered in elemental ways. This transformation is not encapsulated in the creation of a new theoretical approach or by merely employing more sophisticated and complex methodologies to know the world. Instead, we see the need to change central aspects of the conception and character of the discipline to address new purposes and fresh aspirations that transcend the interests of professional archaeologists and that advance something other than the welfare of academic departments or cultural resource management/archaeological resource management (CRM/ARM) firms. We are issuing a call—hopeful and practical—to refit archaeology to serve the pressing present needs of communities outside of our discipline. As we look to the future, we want to see archaeology transformed into a practice that is not only acceptable to communities but also useful and perhaps even necessary in our contemporary world. There is much at stake, and we challenge ourselves and other archaeologists to make archaeology a way and a means for taking care of our planet and of one another—a tool for activism in the world.

We are not the first or only archaeologists to call for activism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, scholars in Latin America and Europe mobilized archaeology in pursuit of progressive political goals (McGuire 2008, 51–98). Latin Americans sought to build a social archaeology around Panameno and Nalda’s (1978) question of “archaeology for whom?” In Germany, archaeologists and other activists excavated the headquarters of the Gestapo in the dark of night, often returning to dig out what the city government had backfilled the day before (Topography of Terror Foundation 2005; Rürup 2008). We also find our inspiration in the work of archaeologists who sought to build archaeologies by and for indigenous peoples around the world (Dowdall and Parrish 2003; Gnecco and Ayala 2011; Layton 1989; Nicholas and Andrews 1997; Silliman 2008; Smith and Wobst 2005; Smith, Morgan, and van Meer, 2003; Watkins 2000; Wobst 2010). Building on these earlier efforts, we bring a distinctively North American perspective to activism and archaeology. We raise the call for activism in the context of a dying polemical debate over science and relativism. Most importantly, we seek to transform the discipline, not just create an activist niche in archaeology (Silverman and Ruggles 2007; Stottman 2010).

Our call for transformation is not a heedless provocation, but the result of a serious and careful assessment of the practice of archaeology today. Archaeology has always possessed great power. However, it has often wielded much of its weight at the expense and to the detriment of living peoples. More to the point, except in rare instances of private expeditions, the entire archaeological enterprise is publicly owned and funded. What better reason for archaeology to exist than to meet the needs of people. We agree with Schmidt (2005) that much of our discipline’s potential to apply information from the past to positively affect the present has been underutilized. In the chapters that follow, the authors discuss and demonstrate ways that archaeology can realize its potential beyond the confines of “studying the past.” For many, this includes reversing the rationale for archaeology: transforming it from narrowly academic and regulatory practices into an activist tool that draws on the discipline to address politics and real-world problems in the present. Archaeology as activism rejects the choice between science and critique, and instead embraces the cognitive dissonance of deploying both archaeological science and critical archaeology to serve the interests of communities in the world.

What We No Longer Want to See in Archaeology

Archaeology needs disruption because when pursued as top-down, researcher-driven, or government-mandated practice, it can (and all too often does) disenfranchise people from their heritage in real and powerful ways (McAnany and Parks 2012; Pyburn, this volume). Too often, practicing archaeology under prevailing current principles and precepts disconnects people from their past through highly constrained knowledge production, interpretation, and dissemination processes that are, with few exceptions, dictated by and meaningful to archaeologists and archaeologists alone. Archaeologists, perhaps unwittingly although at times quite intentionally, act in paternalistic ways to claim authority and dominion over all or part of other people’s heritage. This is particularly visible when the archaeological record is framed as global cultural heritage or requisitely part of a universal human heritage that must be shared equally by all.

The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) identifies stewardship as the central principle of archaeological ethics (Lynott and Wylie 1995). The principle springs from a declaration that archaeological materials are a public trust that should be used to benefit all people, and from an assertion that archaeologists are the stewards of these materials. As stewards, archaeologists are both caretakers of, and advocates for, archaeological materials. The SAA principles recognize that various groups within the “public” may have differing interests in archaeological materials, and they charge archaeologists to address these interests. Even though the SAA principles argue that no one person or group should have exclusive access or control of archaeological resources, they clearly privilege archaeologists as the managers and specialists who must advocate the scientific study and preservation of archaeological materials. Yet, stewards are servants—they work for somebody. Who do archaeologists work for? The SAA principles incorporate a long-standing position in American archaeology: that the archaeological record is a public trust, and that archaeologists are stewards for that public (Groarke and Warrick 2006). But who is that public, and how did they choose archaeologists to be the stewards of their heritage? Zimmerman (1995, 66) suggests that we start by recognizing that a diversity of valid interests exists (and have always existed) in the past, and that, as such, we should assert that “All people are stewards of the past.” We concur, adding that archaeologists also share responsibilities as stewards of the present.

Assuming a self-appointed, sole stewardship role over the archaeological record, creating knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and foregrounding data over people, all contribute to larger contemporary problems. For example, archaeology is often used for cultural authentication and the gatekeeping of ethnic and gender identities (Clauss 2007). Furthermore, the discipline supports a flawed class structure in its demarcation of CRM/ARM archaeology versus academic archaeology. As Welch and Ferris (this volume) and Ferris and Welch (this volume) point out, archaeology also perpetuates and benefits from an extraction-consumption paradigm within societies struggling toward greater sustainability, collective responsibility, and balanced reciprocity in all its interactions with the environment and other people. And, as previously remarked, the discipline continues to contribute to nationalist agendas, racial inequality, colonialism, and globalization in many countries around the world (McDavid 2002; McNiven and Russell 2005; Wobst 2010; Zimmerman 2006).

Unfortunately, these acts of disenfranchisement have become the status quo in much of the way archaeology is practiced. In response, there has been a growing literature that reflects upon, and dissects, this process of disenfranchisement (Cojti-Ren 2006; Gnecco and Hernandez 2008; Lilley 2009; McAnany and Parks 2012; McNiven and Russell 2005; Moser et al. 2002; Welch and Riley 2001; Wobst 2010). Yet, overall, these discussions have been relegated to the margins of the field, and as a result, the problematic aspects of archaeology persist (Clauss, this volume). So although some individual archaeologists have come to question their role as stewards, and many of them have changed the way they engage with communities outside the discipline, we don’t see evidence that the majority of practitioners recognize and acknowledge the problematic ways that the practice of archaeology subjugates those outside the profession or that this aspect of the discipline requires alteration. Although there is movement toward greater collaboration and community-oriented practice, we haven’t yet experienced an overarching shift, a sea change in the way archaeology, as a profession, is practiced.

At least part of the reason for this reluctance may be that the literature detailing the ways archaeology is oppressive tends to focus on critique rather than pragmatic solutions, more on theory than practice. And although critique is necessary for identifying problems, it often does little to create pathways by which the problematic aspects of a discipline can be challenged to the point of change. To truly and lastingly transform archaeology, we think it is time to move beyond critique. Thus, what we offer in this volume is forward looking and solution oriented. The chapters presented here collectively propose that archaeologists act individually, and in concert, to employ and apply activist perspectives, methods, and subject expertise to craft a better world.

We remain aware of the need to critique archaeology, yet our goal is not simply to tear it down. Instead, we are working to model the move from critique to action. Our aim for this volume is to provide readers with glimpses of areas in which archaeology is being transformed (see chapters in this volume by McGuire, McAnany, Nicholas, Stottman, and Pyburn). We offer plans for actions that will further transform the discipline (see chapters in this volume by Clauss, Atalay, Ferri...