Short Abstract:
This session aims to debate central themes in Marxist Archaeology (power, class, ideology & being). In particular, it seeks to assess whether Marxism's ontological and epistemological approaches can transcend post-processual relativism and produce a more purposeful, robust, and socially engaged form of theoretical pluralism in archaeology.
Long Abstract:
This session aims to assess whether Marxian ontological and epistemic positions might allow archaeologists to turn their potentially debilitating relativism into a more purposeful form of theoretical pluralism. Marxism has a celebrated influence in archaeological analyses of the politics of the past; discussions about social identity and class; relativism and multi-vocality; and the relationships between theory/data, material culture/action, archaeologist/society. Contributions to the session may reflect core themes in Marxist archaeology such as explicitly emancipatory approaches to research, the analysis of political interests and scientific knowledge, inequality, authority and anarchy, or socio-cultural evolution. Alternately, papers may consider the practical application of Marxian concepts, such as the domestic mode of production or surplus value, to archaeological settings.
In particular, the session hopes to explore from a Marxian perspective the claim that post-processualism's radical relativism 1) risks 'reconstructing a past in our own image' (Insoll 2007: 9), 2) slides archaeology further towards idealism (Barrett and Ko 2009), and 3) creates an environment where archaeology lacks the ability to judge competing knowledge claims and hence challenge hegemonic social conditions (McGuire 2008). The session locates itself in the interstitial space between objectivism/relativism, idealism/materialism, explanation/emancipation and emphasizes the interrelationships (both complementary and contradictory) that linked production, social organization, power and ideology in the past. It thus showcases the ways that Marxian analyses transcend the conceptual boundaries created during the processual/post-processual debate.
Accepted papers:
Session 1
Marxism as moderation in household archaeology
Jerimy Cunningham
(University of Lethbridge)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing from ethnoarchaeological research in Mali and archaeological research in the Casas Grandes system from Northern Mexico, I argue that Marxian holism provides a pluralistic framework for the analyses of domesticity.
Paper long abstract:
Marxism is typically associated with radical politics and often even more radical theory. Yet, the holistic vision offered by Marxian approaches to cultural ontology and to epistemology can also be read as a call for moderation. In the past, Marxian perspectives have offered archaeologists with a middle-of-the-road antidote to the binary thinking that produced processualist and postprocessualist positions. I would suggest that these same perspectives offer a broad framework that now could inspire archaeologists to convert their eclecticism into a more productive form of theoretical pluralism. Drawing on ethnoarchaeological research in Mali and archaeological investigations in the Casas Grandes system from Northern Mexico, I outline how engagements with Marx can enable robust analyses of domesticity.
Revival of Vladimir Gening's Fundamental Archaeological Theory: possible solution of contemporary methodological problems in archaeology
Sergii Paliienko
(Kiev University of Tourism, Economy and Law)
Paper short abstract:
Fundamental Archaeological Theory based on materialistic dialectic was created by Vladimir Gening in the second half of 1970s - 80s. Its applying and further development were stopped now, but returning to this theory would help solving a lot of actual contemporary archaeology problems.
Paper long abstract:
Applying of the Marxist paradigm in Soviet archaeology during 1930-s enabled to reconstruct social processes in the past, but there were no special methodology created at that time. Accumulation of the archaeological dates in 1960-s determined an elaboration of USSR archaeology theoretical problems.
Vladimir Gening was one of the greatest Soviet theorists. He developed Fundamental Archaeological Theory (FAT) based on materialistic dialectic in the second half of 1970s - 80s. It would have to be the methodological ground for social problems researches using archaeological sources. V. Gening elaborated the archaeology structure problems, the archaeological research procedure, social reconstructions general methodology during that period. His disciples attempted to apply FAT in practice.
The main Gening's opponent was Leo Klejn. The discussion about object and subject matter of science took place in soviet archaeology in the second half of 1980s. But Klejn's critic of Gening's theory had grown into critic of Marxism and communist ideas, while the latest attainments of FAT were not critically analyzed.
Applying of FAT and further development were stopped after the USSR disappearing and Gening's death in 1993rd, but the potencial of theory was not exhaust. Therefore returning to the theoretical heritage of V. Gening would be able to solve a lot of actual problems producing by use the contemporary methodological paradigm and this way archaeology may be raised to the new level of quality.
Surplus manipulation and social formation: the contribution of archaeological storage studies in tracing socio-cultural change
Ioannis Voskos
(University of Athens)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between changing economic patterns and the appearance of asymmetrical power relations and social inequality in Prehistoric Cyprus via the assessment of storage activities.
Paper long abstract:
The accumulation of agricultural surplus is a key factor in the development of complex societies and surplus storage is an integral part of production and social reproduction. Although the link between surplus production and storage is vital for the understanding of social organisation, little attention has been paid to the causative character of this relationship.
In this paper, I argue that a careful examination of storage technology, storage installations and their interrelation with the use of space may provide useful insights into the organisation and relations of production, who controls the mobilisation and distribution/redistribution of agricultural surplus, which are the basic oppositions within a community that promote social change, etc. The economic consideration of given communities in specific chronological contexts may benefit from a theoretical framework which comprises issues such as the Marxian concepts of "mode of production" and "surplus value" as well as the employment of household-level and intra-site analysis. In this attempt, examples from prehistoric Cyprus (Ceramic Neolithic - Chalcolithic - Bronze Age) will be discussed.
Reprising Marxism from the Ground Up: Epistemology, Space and Society
Adrian Davis
(University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
Robin B. Weaver
(University of Birmingham)
Paper short abstract:
This paper attempts to lay the basis for a holistic reprise of Marxism. We argue that post-processualism threw out a humanist Marx with the deterministic Structural Marxist bathwater. If we want to transcend this error and tackle the unwanted relativistic and under-determined features of our theory, then we must reconnect with Marx’s core concepts of ideology, materiality and a dialectical history.
This paper will ask: why has British archaeology become so thoroughly disengaged from Marxist ideas? On what basis were Marxist/Marxian approaches to society dropped from the post-processual programme following the volumes edited by Spriggs, and Miller and Tilley (both 1984)? What might a humanist Marxist archaeology look like? In confronting these two questions our paper will set out a critique of British archaeology’s current attitudes toward Marxian perspectives in the discipline, arguing that this is no longer epistemologically or ethically responsible.
Paper long abstract:
We begin with the historicist conviction that V Gordon Childe's Marxist inspired rejection of Collingwood's philosophical idealism and particularistic approach to history, hold important clues to why Marx continues to be resisted in theoretical circles. For example, in Ian Hodder's Reading the Past series (1986, 1991, 2003) contextual and interpretive initiatives in archaeology are traced squarely to Collingwood's tolerance of relativism, and especially his contextual and particularistic view of history. Similarly, we believe much of the antipathy to Marx derives from post-processualists' mistaken interpretation of cultural determinism and vulgar materialism in Childe's work.
This theoretical confusion can be traced in the conception of the relationship between space and society in approaches to early prehistoric monumental landscapes. Current models invariably loose the dynamic character of social space's historical being because they choose either an historical idealism (structuralism) or an ahistorical materialism (phenomenology, structural Marxism) upon which to base interpretation (i.e. society → space or space → society inferences). A more productive and epistemologically sound approach can be found in Hegelian Marxist dialectics (see McGuire 1992, A Marxist Archaeology; i.e. a space ↔ society relationship). What follows is an exploration of Henri Lefebvre's spatial dialectical model of society (1991, The Production of Space), which serves to show case what a humanist Marxist archaeology can achieve.