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- Convenor:
-
Sheila Kohring
(University of Cambridge)
- Location:
- Wills G25
- Start time:
- 17 December, 2010 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The session brings together individuals situated in the various strands of archaeology in an attempt to highlight points of tension in archaeological practice and whether we exist as a discipline with a coherent epistemological remit and, if not, where might we find disciplinary solidarity.
Long Abstract:
This session explores the way archaeology is carved up by dividing lines from within the discipline itself. While we all call ourselves "archaeologists" - and we are usually perceived as such from the exterior - we often create artificial boundaries between categories of archaeology, categories we all comfortably use: academic and contract, social and scientific, theoretical and culture historical, North American and European - the list can continue and often relies on deeper dualities within broader society. By creating these dividing lines, in effect we are fragmenting the basic epistemological structure of the discipline by narrowing and shaping the methodological structure and practice of how archaeology is conducted in each "category". This, of course, shapes interpretation and even theory to the point that we must ask if we now exist in a world of archaeologies rather than archaeology.
The session brings together individuals situated in the various strands of archaeology in an attempt to highlight points of tension in archaeological practice. The session seeks to address whether we exist as a discipline with a coherent epistemological remit and, if not, where might we find disciplinary solidarity (or, if we can't, is that a bad thing?).
Accepted papers:
Session 1Anwen Cooper (Durham University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses data from a series of life-history interviews to reconsider perceived disciplinary divides in British archaeology over the past 30 years. It considers both the productive and the negative effects of such divides, providing a vital historical context for the current state of affairs.
Paper long abstract:
This paper uses evidence from life-history interviews undertaken with practitioners from across the broad spectrum of British archaeology to reconsider perceived disciplinary divides. It examines the changing character of different disciplinary groupings over the duration of the past 30 years, situates notions of disciplinary separation in relation to concomitant views that the archaeological community is small and tight-knit, renders ways in which the operation of disciplinary relationships (both cohesive and divisive) has actually been implicated in recent and contemporary research practices, and examines how disciplinary disunity (or at least perceptions of disciplinary disunity) can actually be quite productive. In doing so, it provides a vital historical context for understanding current disciplinary dividing lines and tensions, and evinces the fluidity and complexity of even the most seemingly entrenched of archaeology's social and epistemological boundaries.
Monique Boddington
Paper short abstract:
This paper covers the ongoing debate in archaeology between objectivity and subjectivity. Looking into why this divide continues and explain why it is so difficult, given the nature of archaeology, to reconcile these two sides.
Paper long abstract:
Within archaeology there has been an ongoing divide between the objective and subjective, post-processual versus processual. One comes from the need to be archaeologists, to make statements about the past and the other comes from an ethical concern that different voices need to be heard. Theoretical changes have partly arisen out of a concern regarding the ethical nature of knowledge construction in archaeology but it remains that what is emancipatory to many groups hinders the archaeologist. Archaeology is now viewed as a political tool but it remains uncertain how to deal with this debate.
In this paper I would like to define both sides of this and discuss why archaeology has these two faces. How this comes from not only epistemological concerns but also ontological ones. The problem remains that archaeologists aim towards an understanding of the past but this is always situated within a political and social context. The current epistemological position makes this very difficult and I will show why it is so difficult to reconcile these two sides, how currently rather than an explicit epistemological approach we instead draw lines in the sand, dangerously, where some voices appear more equal than others.
Mary Leighton (University of Chicago)
Paper short abstract:
Using an example from Chile, I discuss how anxieties surrounding the contrast between academic and contract archaeology reveal inherent concerns about archaeology's epistemological foundations.
Paper long abstract:
My research into different practices of North and South American archaeologists working in Chile and Bolivia starts with the understanding that there are indeed many archaeologies. Using an example from Chile, I explore how boundaries within archaeology, and the debates they generate, work to "think through" epistemological anxieties that remain at the heart of archaeology as a field science.
In the last decade, arqueología impacto (contract archaeology) in Chile has rapidly grown as an alternative field of employment to the limited networks of academic archaeology. At the same time, radical shifts in the university system are transforming the career paths of the growing number of graduates. Both the new educational qualifications and the alternate networks of impacto are challenging traditional definitions of professional archaeological expertise. The understanding of what it means to be an archaeologist - and as a result, what it means to create archaeological knowledge - is undergoing a transformation.
Debates surrounding the Colegio de Arqueólogos, an organisation recently created by some of these young archaeologists, have brought into focus the perceived disparity between impacto and academic archaeologies. While the traditional Sociedad Chilena de Arqueología concerns itself only with scholarship, the Colegio proposes to be the outspoken public voice of the archaeological profession in Chilean society, while also campaigning for better working conditions for all archaeologists. In this paper, I will explore how the debates over the Colegio and impacto are ultimately tied to anxieties about the epistemological foundations of archaeology, in Chile and beyond.
Martyn Barber (English Heritage) Helen Wickstead (Kingston University)
Paper short abstract:
Paper long abstract:
How does the creation of boundaries around a discipline have effects within it? This paper uses the history of Geophysics to explore how epistemological boundaries emerge. At their introduction, certain Geophysical techniques were poorly understood by most archaeologists. Although electrically based methods were eventually relatively widely adopted, and adapted (often by enthusiastic amateurs brandishing Heath-Robinson devices), other techniques were initially the preserve of small groups of specialists, many of whom had backgrounds outside Archaeology. The liminal characteristics of archaeological geophysics were enhanced by the uncomfortable similarities its methods bore to practices long present on the fringe of archaeology - notably dowsing and the investigation of ghostly and psychic phenomena. Establishing legitimacy for Geophysics involved constructing strong defences against Archaeology's "lunatic fringe". Paradoxically it may be these very defences that have segregated Geophysics from wider conversations questioning epistemologies and experimenting with alternative ways of building knowledge.
Mary Gee
Paper short abstract:
This talk examines the problem of working across disciplinary boundaries, particularly where there are deep rifts between the concepts and theories employed to explain the complex phenomena that arise from ordinary human behaviour.
Paper long abstract:
My research develops a method of cultural analysis, which can be used to explore the relationship between human behaviour and material culture. This relationship results in very complex phenomena that are difficult to address analytically. There is already a wealth of knowledge about this problem domain, contributed not least by archaeologists but by anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists, etc. However, how to conceptualise the problems, operationalise the theory, and work empirically with real data is difficult to determine in an epistemologically fractured field.
To engage this issue, a study of the carbonated soft drink (soda) was developed as an arena for examining the requirements to the tools cultural analysts need to come to grips with cultural phenomena. The purpose of Sodaworld is to understand the behavioural dynamics of the complex interactions that are responsible for producing soda generally and soda brands such as Coca-Cola specifically. Such phenomena, which are common-place in human culture, are composed of many different types of entities and processes, which require a range of specialist insights and knowledge. How to integrate these across disciplinary categories that are narrowly structured by methodology is the key challenge faced by the Sodaworld case study.
This talk uses examples from Sodaworld to discuss the effect of dualities such as social/biological, cultural/natural, theory/practice. An effort is made to consider how the solution(s) might be approached and the steps taken in Sodaworld to overcome the disconnect between different knowledge domains.
Alice Clough
Paper short abstract:
Popular culture studies has emerged as a lesser known - and often less respected - subset of material and visual culture studies. This paper uses a popular culture case study as the basis for an exploration of why popular culture studies remain a poor analogical resource for understanding the past.
Paper long abstract:
The archaeological record is the result of exchange and collection of visual and artifactual media, and yet our approach to these has often focused on anthropological and philosophical discourses. Popular culture studies has emerged as a lesser known - and often less respected - subset of material and visual culture studies. Within particular disciplinary boundaries, popular culture studies can be seen as shallow, trashy, or irrelevant especially in regards to understanding the sociality of past peoples. As such, these new discourses have struggled to establish a position of perceived legitimacy within the world of archaeology and anthropology and yet they can be used to inform and shape archaeological and anthropological investigations.
This paper draws on recent work within popular culture studies to explore different ways of approaching material culture. It uses the example of the mass consumption of images - to explain how their materiality enables specific forms of collecting and exchanging, or ways of 'world-making', in today's seemingly superficial society of the spectacle (after Debord 1967). These interests converge with archaeology (see Ingold 2000) and yet by drawing epistemological lines around popular culture studies, we ironically identify it as something more 'other' than those past societies we are trying to approach. As such, popular culture approaches to material culture and visual representation remain a poor analogical resource for understanding the past.
Debord, G. (1967) *Society of the Spectacle* Buchet: Paris.
Ingold, T. (2000) Making culture and weaving the world. In P.M. Graves-Brown (ed.) *Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture* pp. 50 -71. London: Routledge.