Interrogating Human Origins

Decolonisation and the Deep Human Past

Martin Porr, Jacqueline Matthews, Martin Porr, Jacqueline Matthews

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000761931
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Sciences sociales
• Thema: Archéologie

Interrogating Human Origins encourages new critical engagements with the study of human origins, broadening the range of approaches to bring in postcolonial theories, and begin to explore the decolonisation of this complex topic.

The collection of chapters presented in this volume creates spaces for expansion of critical and unexpected conversations about human origins research. Authors from a variety of disciplines and research backgrounds, many of whom have strayed beyond their usual disciplinary boundaries to offer their unique perspectives, all circle around the big questions of what it means to be and become human. Embracing and encouraging diversity is a recognition of the deep complexities of human existence in the past and the present, and it is vital to critical scholarship on this topic.

This book constitutes a starting point for increased interrogation of the important and wide-ranging field of research into human origins. It will be of interest to scholars across multiple disciplines, and particularly to those seeking to understand our ancient past through a more diverse lens.

SECTION 1

Introduction

1

INTERROGATING AND DECOLONISING THE DEEP HUMAN PAST

Martin Porr and Jacqueline M. Matthews

Introduction

Even though archaeology is often regarded as a relatively recent discipline, it already has a long and complicated global history. It is widely recognised and accepted that archaeology is closely connected to the development of Western modernity, nationalism and imperialism. These latter aspects particularly influenced archaeology in its formative period during the nineteenth century, and they have left a strong legacy. The nineteenth century was also the time during which the understanding of human history and ethnographic variability was fundamentally reconfigured through a complex interaction between the emerging fields of archaeology and anthropology. Parallel developments include the establishment of the deep antiquity of humanity, which became widely accepted together with the recognition of biological evolution, extinct archaic hominins and, more generally, deep links between humanity and the rest of the natural world. These developments took place in a setting that was politically and socio-economically dominated by European nations and their empires. Possibly the most significant expression of this dominance was the system of global European colonialism, which reached its greatest extent in the late nineteenth century and deeply affected the European political and intellectual landscape, and the perception of the world, its people and their histories. In this text, we use the terms European and Western colonialism to refer to the colonial system of global economic exploitation that was established by European nations from the sixteenth century onwards and subsequently also included the United States as an active force (Nayar 2015b).

Today, it is widely accepted that archaeology’s history is closely related to Western colonial expansions and the subsequent denigration of colonised peoples (Gosden 2004; 2012; Liebmann & Rizvi 2008; Lydon & Rizvi 2012). Together with the large number of other disciplines that comprise the ‘academy’, archaeology is recognised to be a product of colonial Western ideology and discourse, and indeed important and positive developments have been undertaken by uncovering the ongoing influences of these historical and intellectual configurations (Bruchac, Hart & Wobst 2010; McNiven & Russell 2005). Important discussions about historical and contemporary influences of colonialism and the applicability of postcolonial thought to different aspects of global archaeology are ongoing and continue to make important contributions to this field (Hamilakis 2009; 2012; Hamilakis & Duke 2007; Moro-Abadía 2006). More generally and despite much diversity in approaches, a recognition of the importance of reflexivity towards archaeological methods and theories has been a central element within the discipline for some time now. It is generally accepted that our subjectivities are inescapable and that an understanding of the relationships between the different forces impacting on any practitioner is necessary to conduct good research (see for example contributions in Hodder 2012).

However, it seems noteworthy that there is only limited engagement with these aspects of archaeological theory and practice in the fields that traditionally are concerned with human origins or human evolution, Palaeolithic archaeology, and palaeoanthropology. Even if we understand ‘human origins’ research very broadly, it is noticeable that contributions dealing with these themes are virtually absent in the postcolonial or decolonising literature within archaeology (see for example Bruchac, Hart & Wobst 2010; Gosden 2012; Liebmann & Rizvi 2008; Lydon & Rizvi 2012; McNiven & Russell 2005; Rizvi 2015). We appear to be faced with a situation in which important and significant sections of archaeology remain largely unaffected by some of the most significant theoretical developments to influence our field in recent decades. This situation is unsatisfactory because it is these sections of archaeology that tend to make a range of universalist claims about humanity’s past, how ‘we’ became human, what it means to be human and so on.

As we will outline in this chapter, similar universal claims by mostly Western scientists, politicians, administrators and writers have been at the core of postcolonial critique for a long time. This volume aims to fill a gap in critical archaeological analysis and research history. It is aimed at exploring connections and entanglements between the study of human origins and human evolution, and Western colonialism and its critique. However, we also recognise the numerous links that exist between postcolonialism and other critical developments that have gained traction throughout the second half of the twentieth century, e.g. poststructuralism, critical theory and Marxist approaches (McLeod 2007; Young 2001). More recently, the influence of Indigenous philosophies and non-Western intellectual contributions has increased the engagement with ontological dimensions of scientific inquiry, so-called new animism and new materialism, as well as post-humanist approaches (Alberti 2016; Alberti et al. 2011; Alberti & Marshall 2009). These latter developments are broadly related to postcolonial thought through the challenge of established Western science, its epistemologies, ontology and practices, as well as the related intellectual and political dominance of the West (Blaser 2013b; 2014; Coole & Frost 2010; Grusin 2015; Tsing 2015). The contributions in this volume, consequently, approach the theme in different ways and from different perspectives. Some make explicit reference to postcolonial literature; some do not. They all, however, closely interrogate human origins and human becoming in a theoretically-informed fashion that centres an awareness of the socio-economic and historical conditions of archaeological practice.

Research, knowledge and the postcolonial critique

The idea of decolonisation as an intellectual endeavour grew out of the political and socio-economic upheavals after World War II during which many of the formal and institutionalised structures of Western colonialism were dismantled (see for example contributions in Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin 1995; Bhambra 2014; Young 2001). These developments reconfigured the power relationships between colonisers and colonised and opened new spaces in which it became possible to critically engage with and analyse the mechanisms that had created, justified and perpetuated the system of Western colonialism. The intellectual roots of such an explicitly critical postcolonial movement or postcolonialism can be identified in a wave of anticolonial literature between the 1930s through to the 1960s. These were to a large extent embedded in or even initiated the complex movements of decolonisation, political independence and national liberation (Bhabha 1994; Said 1978; Spivak 1999). Just as Western or European colonialism was not a monolithic ideology and found different expressions in different parts of the world, reactions, responses and critical engagements were also variable (Bhambra 2014; Young 2001). Despite some significant differences, ‘postcolonial’ or approaches with a decolonising agenda often share a challenge against ‘traditional colonialist epistemologies, questioning the knowledge about and the representation of colonised “Others” that has been produced in colonial and imperial contexts’ (Liebmann 2008, p. 5). Postcolonial studies are known for their critique of Eurocentrism, nationalism, colonial ideologies and economic determinism. They tend to concentrate on subaltern agency and culture as a central mechanism in the creation of social formations (Chibber 2013, p. 4).

Postcolonial approaches raise profound issues related to the knowability of social forms and causalities. These approaches can be regarded as a reflection of critical reflexive dimensions that have been a central force, directly and indirectly, affecting all fields of comparative studies of human societies in a wider sense of the term. They stem not only from postcolonial critique but more broadly through the so-called crisis of representation (Clifford & Marcus 1986; Marcus & Fischer 1986) and the cultural turn (Chibber 2013, p. 1). Largely replacing Marxist materialism as the dominant theoretical framework, these aspects have particularly impacted cultural or social anthropology from the late 1970s onwards, and the criticism of colonial discourses necessitated a critique of the objectifying epistemology of anthropology itself. Recursively, the critique of the construction of ‘the Other’ through such discourses leads toward the emergence of cultural critique, which takes seriously where the dominant ideas that direct thought and practice emerge from and on what basis their validity is accepted. A critical reflexive dimension has since been a central force that has directly and indirectly affected the social sciences and literary studies in a wider sense of the term. One of the key characteristics of postcolonialism was its rapid movement from literature and literary studies to many other academic and non-academic fields. From around the end of the twentieth century, postcolonialism ‘was no longer a purely disciplinary phenomenon’ (Chibber 2013, p. 2).

Postcolonialism developed out of the resistance against colonial power structures and it ‘marks the moment where the political and cultural experience of the marginalized periphery developed into a more general theoretical position that could be set against western political, intellectual and academic hegemony and its protocols of objective knowledge’ (Young 2001, p. 65). Hence, the project of Subaltern Studies has been a key catalyst for the postcolonial movement since the early 1980s (Chaturvedi 2000; Ludden 2002). Postcolonial approaches consequently often stress the subjective, personal and individual experience as an important element and causal factor in social processes and formations. In this way, the insights from the periphery have been employed to critique the narratives that have originated from the centre. Postcolonial theory operates on the assumption that intellectual and cultural traditions from former colonies or other suppressed social contexts can be deployed against the heritage of colonialism and its ideologies in the West itself (Young 2001, p. 65). Postcolonialism has developed not only into a collection of analytical approaches, but also a transdisciplinary and global cultural critique of social practices. Therefore, it has been argued that postcolonialism does not present a coherent theory and methodology. It rather presents a critical and political agenda that employs a range of shifting theories and methods (Chibber 2013, p. 3). It is broadly committed to political ideals of transnational social justice and against hegemonic economic imperialism.

Over the last few decades, postcolonialism has shifted its focus together with changes in the global political and economic systems. The end of the European political colonial system and the end of the Cold War produced new forms of domination, which have been described as capitalist economic imperialism. Postcolonialism today operates within these structures, as a critical response to its conditions, and has to ‘contend with a complex adversary whose power is dispersed through a wide range of globalized institutions and practices’ (Young 2001, p. 59). Consequently, the focus has more recently shifted to uncovering and exposing the imperialist system of economic, political and cultural domination with a particular emphasis on the subtle mechanisms of the latter. This tendency is linked to the cultural orientation of postcolonial critique mentioned above that found an early reflection in the idea of the ‘decolonisation of the mind’ (Ngugi 1986), which has now become an important element in a wide range of disciplines. For example, social anthropology has recently been suggested as ‘being the theory/practice of the permanent decolonization of thought’ (Viveiros de Castro 2014, p. 40). Through a serious engagement with Indigenous worldviews and directions from Indigenous scholars, this orientation understands the Western framework of ontology, epistemology and knowledge as a product of its own specific conditions and consequently denies its ability and authority to explain and describe humanity as a whole. This critique has been applied to several analytical fields, for example, the conceptualisation of social space and time, the division between nature and culture, humanity and animality and notions of causal relationships and material effects (Bhambra 2014; Kohn 2013; Mignolo 2011). Postcolonialism is, therefore, concerned with dislocating, questioning and displacing Western knowledge and its dominance, which includes Western historicist history as the dominant narrative that includes and ultimately replaces all other narratives (Chakrabarty 2000).

As mentioned above, the intellectual side of decolonisation has always been entangled with political and economic aspects related to independence movements and calls for social justice and sovereignty. Accordingly, postcolonialism has also deeply impacted the practical and ethical aspects of research (Tuck & Yang 2012). These aspects, of course, take different forms across different disciplines in the natural and social sciences. They range from the establishment of consultation and permission protocols to the collaborative control of research materials and results as well as collaboratively authored publications. However, despite many positive developments and legislative changes, Indigenous authors continue to stress that these aspects still need a lot of work. As Tuhiwai Smith (2012, p. 232) has argued, ‘scientific research remains inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism […] The word itself, “research”, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary.’ This devastating assessment is based on the long experience of objectification of Indigenous people by Western scientists. Whereby, science became another facet of the extractive and exploitative practices of European domination:

It appals us that the West can desire, extract and claim ownership of our ways of knowing, our imagery, the things we create and produce, and then simultaneously reject the people who created and developed those ideas and seek to deny them further opportunities to be creators of their own culture and own nations.

(Tuhiwai Smith 2012, p. 240)

While these aspects cannot be discussed in greater detail here, it is important to stress that the postcolonial movement necessitates a critical engagement with knowledge production, knowledge hierarchies and knowledge institutions, which is important for the theory and practice of all fields of archaeology as well. As Rizvi (2008, p. 108) has argued, to ‘decolonise does not only index a choice to change the discipline but also in a very real way, is a desire to s...