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Accepted Paper:

Archaeological ethnography: materiality, heritage and hybrid methodologies  
Lynn Meskell (Stanford University)

Paper short abstract:

British and American archaeologies reflect different histories of connection with anthropology. Shared literatures and shared concerns between the two disciplines have resulted in compelling theoretical and ethical engagements. Here I outline hybrid field methodologies that have recently developed and underscore why such transformations have critically re-shaped archaeological practice in the United States. An archaeological ethnography conducted over several years in South Africa serves as a case study.

Paper long abstract:

British and American archaeologies reflect different histories of connection with anthropology. Shared literatures and shared concerns between the two disciplines have resulted in compelling theoretical and ethical engagements, so it is timely that scholars also craft a methodological meeting ground. Recently, new hybrid modes of research have developed and have critically re-shaped American archaeological practice. The generative nature of debates involving Native American materials, histories, collaborations, has situated North American archaeology differently to its British counterpart.

Throughout my South African fieldwork I have described one possibility for the convergence between disciplines as an archaeological ethnography — a traversing of two distinct, but necessarily enmeshed fields. Archaeological ethnography might encompass a mosaic of traditional forms including archaeological practice, museum or representational analysis, as well as long-term involvement, participant observation, interviewing, as well as archival work. Yet where this work diverges from mainstream ethnography is with the foregrounding of the past’s materiality, specifically those traces of the past that have residual afterlives in living communities, are often considered spiritually significant, and that invite governmental monitoring and control that many indigenous communities and archaeologists increasingly find problematic. Archaeological ethnography often entails collaborating with, rather than studying, the people with whom we work in the heritage sphere. It similarly intercalates with broader cosmopolitan concerns to empower connected communities and affect change at higher levels of power structuring. Ultimately this is an outgrowth of an ethical archaeology, one that takes as its project the contemporary relevance of archaeological heritage.

Panel Plen3
Epistemologies and models of explanation
  Session 1