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Review Essay
Is Archaeology Political?
Transformative Praxis within
and against the Boundaries
of Archaeology
Christopher N. Matthews
Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics, Yannis Hamilakis and
Philip Duke, eds. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007; 352 pp.; clothbound, $79.00.
Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Native Peoples and Archaeology in the Northeastern United States, Jordan E. Kerber, ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006; 384 pp.; paperbound, $24.95.
Opening Archaeology: Repatriation’s Impact on Contemporary Research and
Practice, Thomas W. Killion, ed. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008; 288 pp.; paperbound, $29.95.
Archaeology as Political Action, Randall H. McGuire. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2008; 312 pp.; clothbound, $65.00.
Archaeological Ethics, 2d ed., Karen D. Vitelli and Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, eds. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006; 248 pp.; paperbound, $34.95.
The Public Historian, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 79–90 (May 2009). ISSN: 0272-3433,
electronic ISSN 1533-8576.
© 2009 by The Regents of the University of California and the
National Council on Public History. All rights reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the
University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions Web site:
www.ucpressjournals.com /reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10/1525/tph.2009.31.2.79.
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“The question ‘Is archaeology political?’” writes Randall H. McGuire, “has only
one answer: it is.” (224). This assertion, backed up by a far-reaching critical analysis and cases from his own research, is the base of McGuire’s powerful new book,
Archaeology as Political Action. McGuire is one of the most vocal and intelligent proponents for understanding the political significance of archaeology and
the adoption of an explicit praxis-based approach aimed at seizing the discipline’s
political efficacy from the mainstream and putting in the service of “communities other than the middle class” (97). McGuire’s interest, however, is more
than politics as usual—it relates to a pattern of the exclusion of nonprofessional
communities and stakeholders from archaeology, a pattern he identifies as essential to the way archaeology is typically done. McGuire’s is one among a set
of recent volumes that aim to situate, describe, and interpret a recent widely
shared cognizance of archaeology as defined less by the past than by how modern contexts of neo-colonialism and neo-liberal capitalism affect the potential for understanding and collaboration in coming to know how the past matters. The volumes reviewed here consider these matters directly. In addition
to McGuire’s book, I also consider Thomas W. Killion’s Opening Archaeology, Jordan E. Kerber’s, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, Yannis Hamilakis
and Philip Duke’s Archaeology and Capitalism, and Karen D. Vitelli and Chip
Colwell-Chanthaphonh’s revised, second edition of Archaeological Ethics.
“What a difference a decade makes” (Vitelli
and Cowell-Chanthaphonh, 1)
While these volumes are quite diverse, a pervasive theme that emerges in
all is that archaeology is in the midst of a change in practice, perhaps substantial enough to change the very character of the “archaeological.” Described in
Killion’s introduction, archaeology is currently opening itself to “new ideas and
perspectives orthogonal to historical patterns of innovation and change within
the field” (11). These ideas come from quarters far afield from the scholarly
writings, academic seminars, and large-scale international research projects
that normally drive the advancement of archaeological method and theory.
Rather, many new ideas about archaeology derive from non-archaeologists such
as descendent and local communities, tourism boards, government agencies
including the military, antiquities dealers and collectors, and others characterized as “affected peoples” (Vitelli, 123) whose interest in archaeology naturally varies from that of archaeologists. Situated outside the discipline, these
sources appear to Killion to influence archaeology in unusual ways.
I am prompted by these volumes to question this assessment of the relationship between archaeologists and non-archaeologists as insider-outsider.
In this review I consider evidence of how these communities actually share
in the archaeological making of the past and thus coexist much more than they
exist apart. In fact, it is the very boundaries that define archaeology, or that
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establish something as being “archaeological,” that are now in our critical
sights. The work reviewed here, however, too often backs away from this responsibility to rethink the “archaeological,” often reinforcing rather than destabilizing archaeology’s lines of difference. Still, readers are moved along the
path of critique by these volumes in significant and varied ways, so while I
feel there most definitely remains much still to learn about what archaeology
accomplishes and whom it serves, we are well positioned by these volumes to
reach new understandings.
The most basic and problematic book is Vitelli and Colwell-Chanthaphonh’s
new edition of Archaeological Ethics. As in the first edition, the chapters are
from previously published articles found in popular publications, especially
Archaeology magazine. The careful selection of essays from both archaeologists and professional writers helps to simplify certain ethical issues, examination of which has shed light on the changing contexts of archaeological practice. Bringing together papers by archaeologists and journalists, Archaeological
Ethics is the most framed by a shared professional/nonprofessional effort in
the definition of archaeology in this set. However, the volume also best illustrates how archaeology’s boundaries are maintained. Like much archaeological journalism, the central questions are not about archaeology as a practice
or a discourse, but about archaeology’s subjects: its discoveries, the past people
who created them, and the modern professionals and stakeholders who have
an interest in their archaeological qualities. There remains an unproblematic
assumption that readers approvingly know what archaeology is, why it is done,
and whom it serves. This repeated assumption cries out for a deeper awareness of not only different perspectives on the past (i.e., nationalist, colonialist, imperialist, indigenous, capitalist), but how these perspectives remain latent in any normalized understanding of archaeology as an objective, scientific
recovery and analysis of material remains undertaken by trained professionals.
The editor’s introduction provides a brief review of three approaches to
ethics in moral philosophy: utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Preferring the latter, as in “asking what traits of character make a person good”
and maintain “integrity over time” (4), they urge archaeologists “to know the
facts as well as possible” when making ethical judgments. This reasonable advice is then abandoned when the issues and problems that have brought about
the new and recent discussions on ethics in archaeology such as looting, nationalism, and repatriation are buried by references to common sense assumptions about the tangibility of archaeological record, the meaning of the
past, and the place of private property in assessing value, truth, and ethical
action. Interwoven, these assumptions underwrite an extreme archaeological empiricism that positions subjects (including archaeologists) in opposition
to an immutable archaeological record that itself is recognized in large part
as one or another’s property. Readers will mistakenly gather from this volume
that archaeologists are of one mind in their commitment to a now severely
criticized stance that their research has inherent qualities that may stand along-
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side other approaches to the past (e.g., as commodity, as a nationalist foundation, or as indigenous knowledge) without simultaneously subverting them,
or at least that they are actively involved in a dialogic effort to ensure their
mutual distinction. Truly surprising is that issues of divergent values over the
marketing of artifacts or the proper uses of the past constitute the very subject of this book. The fact that these issues are constructed such that they may
be considered as solely archaeological problems, rather than issues in larger
social, cultural, and ideological fields of ethics, speaks to a narrow-minded,
self-interested stance that at least in some quarters, if not in the majority, defines contemporary archaeologists.
Histories and Futures of Native American Archaeologies
If Archaeological Ethics illustrates some of the pitfalls that emerge from
assumptions of a shared construction of archaeology’s objectivity and validity, we gain more penetrating insight from two books that focus on developing relations between archaeologists and Native North Americans. Thomas
Killion’s Opening Archaeology considers the impact of repatriation, specifically resulting from the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), on archaeological practice in North America. Jordan
Kerber’s Cross-Cultural Collaboration examines a spectrum of events, relationships, and programs that have brought about collaboration and changed
the way archaeology is done in the Northeastern United States.
Opening Archaeology simultaneously provides a historical and theoretical
review of the emergence of a post-NAGRPA archaeology. The impact is nicely
captured by Kathleen Fine-Dare: “the writing of archaeological history in the
Americas must now address, as one important change, the ways its own legacy
cannot be subsumed under the history of repatriation” (34). Repatriation is
not a part of archaeology, but something that has acted on it, and it has forced
new and at times damaging narratives to emerge that describe the complicity of archaeology in specifically American colonialist, nationalist, and racist
patterns of Indian exclusion. As Larry Zimmerman notes in this volume, “archaeology can be a cruel discipline” (99). The chapters in Opening Archaeology highlight that this cruelty emerges from inaction by archaeologists belying an ignorance, if not ambivalence, towards the political activism of
indigenous people. Zimmerman and Native American archaeologist Joe
Watkins (Choctaw) discuss scientific colonialism in archaeology, in which the
scientific agenda, presumed to be in service to all of humanity, both fails to
respect “non-scientific” indigenous knowledges, such as oral histories, as well
as the situated basis of any knowledge claim.
Tamara Bray’s “Archaeology’s Second Loss of Innocence” highlights the
disconnect between archaeology’s claim to universal understanding from its
very localized origins, in the sense that it derives from “a locally [i.e., Western European] developed model of the way the world works that was deployed
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globally and seeks to produce translocal (e.g., universal) knowledge” (83). One
could say that the archaeological perspective is embraced solely by archaeologists and a minority of other established members of the scientific community whose credentials after repatriation are validated by an increasingly
smaller segment of the American population. With greater acceptance of social heterogeneity and the development of heterarchical authority over the
legitimacy of archaeological research, Bray urges archaeologists to embrace
a notion of embodied objectivity. She believes archaeologists can realize a path
between subjectivity and objectivity to cultivate an accountability to the
sources that generate archaeological knowledge, including researchers’ own
gender, race, and ethnocentric biases.
Missing in Opening Archaeology is a clear conception of the mutual history that burdens the relationship between archaeology and Native Americans today. A shared distrust, animosity, praise, ambivalence, and cultural entanglement in the past creates a shared history that cannot be presently ignored.
These factors and shared interests brought about repatriation, and they were
not established solely to build a groundwork for congeniality in future dealings.
Justice for past and ongoing illegal and unethical actions underwrites the current landscape, and it binds archaeologists and Native Americans together in
complicated ways. Thus, claims like Lippert’s that the perspectives indigenous
archaeologists “carry into [their] studies are based on a cultural understanding
that is sometimes difficult to express to people who have never experienced the
sense of belonging to a tribe” (159) are unproductive as they simultaneously
reveal and reject the relevance of Native American history. Non-Indians are
made aware of the limitations they face in understanding their Indian colleagues,
but this difference is dehistoricized by an assertion that posits that indigenous
archaeologists derive from and serve a distinct culture. Inasmuch as the difference between Indian and non-Indian archaeologists is real, it is best situated within the long history of domination and struggle of Indian-white relations. Otherwise, the political efficacy of Native American activism that made
indigenous archaeology possible will undoubtedly diminish as it is reduced to
ensuring the personal satisfaction (159) of those like Lippert who now reap the
political, spiritual, and economic benefits of the movement’s past achievements.
A concern with describing collaborative research but also vindicating Indian knowledge claims and even their cultural existence underwrites both Killion’s Opening Archaeology and Kerber’s Cross-Cultural Collaboration. Kerber notes the surprise to many that there still are Indian people to collaborate
with in the Northeast. Along with Joe Watkins, Kerber notes that this fact
affected past archaeologists working in the region who largely ignored the living descendents of those whose settlements and cemeteries they were excavating. Kerber attributes these positions to archaeology’s own ancient history,
explaining that archaeologists and Native Americans now work closely together. The unfortunate part of this story is that it was largely only as a result
of NAGPRA, rather than the action of archaeologists, that this “sea change”
in practice came about.
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The first section in Cross Cultural Collaboration describes issues surrounding the study of Indian burials and illustrates the sharply contrasting concerns and perspectives held by archaeologists and Indians. For example, Massachusetts State Archaeologist Brona G. Simon describes the achievements
of that state’s 1983 Unmarked Burial Law. She opens with a brief eulogy to
John Peters Sr. (Slow Turtle, d. 1997), one of the leading architects of the law,
followed by a description of her experience with an implementation of the
law at a cemetery site on Nantucket in 1992 where Peters ritually smudged
her and her crew. As a “supreme medicine man of the Wampanoag,” Peters
performed the rituals to protect Simon from the negative or unsettled spirits
she might release in the excavation. A similar effort is described as the motive of Abram Quary, the reputed “last Indian” on Nantucket, who was arrested for armed assault in the early 1800s in which he chased away “relic
hunters” from the cemetery Simon later excavated (45). This coincidence
marks a transformation to Simon. While her cultural ancestors were chased
away from the burial ground, she, by virtue of being smudged, was incorporated into the Indian community. She sees her disturbance of the graves as
sanctioned, a change in affairs she claims to be the result of the Unmarked
Burial Law that now fosters friendly Indian-non-Indian relationships in
Massachusetts.
This change in relations is characterized in telling language later in the
chapter. Simon writes, “One of the most important results of the Unmarked
Burial Law . . . has been the change in the sentiment and attitude of the Massachusetts Native American Community toward archaeology, toward the
State Archaeologist, and toward historic preservation in general” (51). Simon
fails to consider that the change in Indian-non-Indian relations in Massachusetts has come about thanks to accommodations by Indians to apparently
unchanged and inherently valid practices of archaeologists and state-level
bureaucrats (who themselves have not changed except when temporarily
smudged), and, despite the excavation of remains from the Nantucket cemetery, to the inherent value of preserving history. This language belies a condescension not only towards the feelings of Indian people in reference to state
power but to the meaning of the nearly four hundred years of exclusionary
history that would prompt such an accommodation. In no instance in the Kerber volume do contributions from archaeologists express any interest in understanding the motivations of Indian people in creating collaborative relationships. Rather, the validity and significance of archaeology is assumed and
an “insider’s” meaning and value of archaeology is taken to be understood and
shared by Indian people.
This position is challenged by two Indian contributors to the book. Both
Richard W. Hill, Sr. (Towanda Seneca) and Ramona L. Peters (Mashpee) highlight a persistent disagreement between Indians and archaeologists over the
definition of archaeological bodies. In Hill’s words “the soil of Mother Earth
is thought to be composed of the decayed flesh and bones of the ancestors,
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replenishing Mother Earth” (11); or, in Peters’, “the soil matrix found in burials is as important as skeletal material and should be repatriated whenever
it has been collected” (39). As archaeologists separate dirt from bone, they
are not simply applying scientific observations but deploying a radical Western sense of the body that denies that the very soil around the bones is the
remains of flesh. These authors extend these critical observations, focusing
especially on issues related to recent trends in collaboration. They highlight
how archaeologists are established by a lineage of Western science and culture most archaeologists were raised in and thus take for granted, while Indian people must translate these meanings and experiences into their own
terms. Indians then work with translated information from a standpoint as
outsiders, who must be invited into the process where they as often as not
still have to fight for recognition. Hill demands: “Why should our beliefs be
subjected to academic and legalistic debate? Who is to judge the validity of
our beliefs?” (9). Or as Peters writes: “ we are often called upon to monitor
both archaeology and the destruction of our ancestral homeland at the same
time.” (38). For Hill and Peters, collaboration involves a great deal more accommodation than they would like, while it appears to ask virtually nothing
at all of archaeologists.
Given that these concerns are clearly voiced in some of the early chapters
in Cross-Cultural Collaboration, the remainder of the book is surprisingly selfcongratulatory. We learn about the education of archaeologists in Indian culture and concerns, as well as instances in which Indian authority was consulted
and acted upon; and we are exposed to parallel Indian and archaeological interpretations by separately authored sections within given chapters. The most
upbeat chapters come from archaeologists who feel they have made “real” connections between Indian people and archaeology. Kerber describes his summer workshops, funded by the Oneida tribe and Colgate University, which
provided field experience to dozens of Oneida youth. Response to the program indicates increased Indian pride among both participants and their parents as they discovered information about Oneida culture and history. One
student concluded that his “people need to get involved with their culture”
(243). Simultaneously, however, Kerber concludes that the reticence by some
youth to offer any reaction or opinion indicate their “feeling uncomfortable
about speaking . . . to me as a person not of Oneida descent” (242). Here a
construction of the Indian/non-Indian divide is inserted into a discomfort with
speaking to a person granted authority by the tribe, Western culture, and the
students themselves. Kerber describes himself as knowledgeable about aspects
of being Oneida that even Oneida people do not know, and as such it is reasonable that the student’s discomfort was with Kerber’s power, not with his
non-Oneida cultural heritage. Such elisions of the history of Indian-white relations and consistent emphasis of the cultural difference between Indians and
archaeologists does little to assist Native Americans working to secure and protect their self-determination and living heritage.
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Notably, the one study to explore the failures of collaborative relations is the
only one that addresses Indian-white history in any detail. John B. Brown III
(Narragansett) and Rhode Island State Archaeologist Paul A. Robinson show
that the twenty-five-year relationship between archaeologists and the Narragansett cannot be characterized as collaborative but one embroiled in disagreement and conflict. Brown and Robinson couch this relationship as part of the
“368 Years’ War” between Europeans settlers and the Narragansett Tribe, a
conflict in which Indians have been colonized, enslaved and “detribalized”
(66). They focus on a cemetery site known as RI 1000, which was accidentally
“discovered” by a front loader in 1982. The renown of the site derives from
two events. It is among the first examples of Native American remains that
were reburied after excavation and analysis. Second, the process of discovery,
consultation, excavation, analysis, and reburial took place in a highly charged
local setting resulting from the passage of the Narragansett Land Claims Act
in 1978 and the federal tribal recognition eventually awarded in 1983. This
situation made RI 1000 a key factor in the effort of “the tribe to demonstrate
to outsiders its continuing and ongoing knowledge of its history and cultural
traditions” (p. 67). The authors believe that this political atmosphere was a
stroke of good fortune. Instead of bemoaning politicization as an interference
to archaeological goals, this case exposes underlying political interests in resource control that may be found in every archaeological study. While the resources may be archaeological, and thus widely interpreted as symbolic identity markers, the successful 1978 Land Claims Act demonstrates that such
symbolism can have substantial material consequences.
Archaeology as Political Action: Critique
McGuire’s book is the boldest statement of this set on the topic of archaeology and political action. He describes how archaeology, as any form of
social knowledge production, is political action by virtue of its mobilization of
resources for the sake of providing new information and clarity about the structure of society past and present. McGuire highlights the depoliticizing efforts
of archaeologists, and defines three dangers of embracing a “politically unbiased archaeology”: triviality, complicity, and unexamined prejudice that promotes “secret writing” in which stated and unstated political motives emerge
in the production and dissemination of archaeological research. The most
prominent secret texts relate to an older concern of nationalism and a newer
concern of the global culture industry.
Specifically related to what McGuire identifies as “fast capitalism,” secret
writing for the culture industry can substantially influence archaeologists and
collaborators. Fast capitalism refers to the increasing speed of commercial
transactions and a system that has emerged around hypercompetitiveness and
the heightened value of exchange in favor of what McGuire calls “craft.” This
impulse has driven commercial interests “into every nook and cranny of so-
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ciety to create new needs,” ultimately devaluing “the life of the mind that does
not produce profits” (6). McGuire thinks archaeology has been injured significantly by fast capitalism, a view of which can be seen in the effort by many
whose work is designed to produce a material heritage for the culture industry. While not new, the virtually global embrace of the touristic value of the
ancient past as something distinct and disconnected from the present has created a firmly established industry that appropriates archaeological findings in
the name of profit.
McGuire seeks to challenge this trend. He sees archaeology as a critical
praxis in which the effort and knowledge of archaeologists serve to emancipate modern people from mythic, nationalist, and pre-packaged pasts and to
deliver material to situate their lives and the archaeological studies that they
discover within it “firmly in place and time” (p. 33). McGuire reviews a broad
range of theoretical trends in recent archaeological work including postprocessual, Hispanic, feminist, Marxist, and indigenous archaeologies. He emphasizes that these new traditions do not suggest fragmentation by identity
politics but conscious efforts by the few to offer their particular political agendas as the key to the relevance of their research. These trends derive from a
consciousness of inequality and exploitation that demands new approaches
and an effort to deconstruct power in the way knowledge is produced and applied in policy and day-to-day life.
Yannis Hamilakis, author of the introduction to Archaeology and Capitalism, would describe this as a movement “from ethics to politics” that derives
from an understanding that “the ethical and sociopolitical arenas should not
be treated as separate” (15). A key phrase missing from McGuire’s book is
“social justice,” which by contrast, resonates throughout Archaeology and
Capitalism. In the introduction Hamilakis echoes McGuire’s emphasis on the
depoliticization of archaeology, but situates this effort specifically in the construction of ethical codes over the course of the 1990s (after the passage of
NAGPRA and under the influence of the supposed fragmentation of the discipline). Hamilakis believes that ethical codes ultimately serve to validate professionalization and instrumentalization, especially in the fetishization of the
archaeological record as an external “resource.” Hamilakis supports the “principle of the politicized ethic” in which the effort to reveal and understand
the political constructs becomes inherent to archaeology. He argues that
“the political ethic puts the archeological enterprise constantly into doubt, asking always the difficult questions, including the most fundamental of all: Why
archaeology?” (24).
Hamilakis notes that this involves “a return of the political” inasmuch as
we accept that issues in social justice movements are highly debated in modern society, but equally that archaeologists may have to enter into “alliances
with like-minded archaeologists against others” (33). Offering directions for
such internal critique, Hamilakis and the other contributors consider the genealogy of archaeology, re-consider depoliticized ethical codes, examine the
political economy of archaeological practice, and develop and engage with al-
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ternative archaeologies framed by and articulating “the micro-politics of a
community with the macro-politics of power” (35).
Tamima Orra Mourad, for example, examines the genealogy of archaeology in the Near East, especially the political action of archaeologists who informed imperial forces (past and present) about the nature of the landscape
and local communities. This intelligence informed military strategy and secured colonies and provinces (151). Mourad sees these works as direct military action. She calls for archaeologists to commit instead to a civilian status.
A civilian stance embraces the “non-innocent” (165) position of the scientific
community as agents of their disciplines as well as their countries of origin
who desire cultural legitimacy by virtue of their scientists’ work.
Reinhard Bernbeck and Susan Pollack, in their chapter “Grabe, Wo Du
Stehst!’ An Archaeology of Perpetrators,” describe an effort to challenge the
distance constructed between past and present in World War II memorials in
Berlin. They critique the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin,
setting it in contrast to less official efforts to preserve the memory of Nazi
atrocities such as a one-day excavation of the Gestapo headquarters and a Topography of Terror exhibit that described Nazi activities that took place at the
site. These works are part of the effort never to forget and simultaneously
to “avoid any memorializing, emotional appeal, or didactic authoritarianism”
(222) in the way Nazi history is told. Berneck and Pollack argue that the perpetrators and their actions are missing in modern heritage, which prioritizes
the achievements of victims. Such one-sided storytelling exposes humanity’s
resilience but effectively silences its capacity for evil. Watering down the message also depoliticizes the struggle, a tactic that serves perpetrators well, especially if the struggle persist today. Bernbeck and Pollack highlight that archaeology offers a productive alternative because “excavation as a central goal
and ongoing activity [may] be understood in both a metaphorical and literal
sense of excavating in minds, memories, and archives as well as in the ground.
The disturbing practice of exposing material elements of the past has a corollary in the reevaluation of collective memory through public discourses surrounding the work” (228). Archaeology can “produce social proximity” (228)
to what otherwise has become a distant and foreign past.
Archaeology as Political Action: Praxis
In “What Does It Mean ‘To Give the Past Back to the People’? Archaeology and Ethics in the Postcolony,” Nick Shepherd argues for a new level of
critical reflection, asking archaeologists “to agree to give up a little after having benefitted from so much” (112). Shepherd’s call for service is heard by some
in this set whose work describes archaeological praxis. McGuire’s projects in
Mexico and Colorado are framed as political action aimed to establish the
viability of archaeology in promoting change. Working in northwest Mexico,
McGuire relates his experience as an American working in collaboration with
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Mexican archaeologists. This cross-border dialogue enabled an independent
voice to emerge that runs against the grain of U.S. southwestern archaeology
to produce new archaeological conceptions of past relations in the region. In
this case, the basis that marginalized Mexico and Mexican archaeologists was
confronted and ultimately produced important new work. McGuire notes as
well a failing of the project, as the descendent Tohono O’odham did not join
with other collaborating groups. The inclusion of this disappointment is a
strategic aspect of storytelling that reveals the importance of maintaining an
ongoing dialogue required to sustain an archaeology in which archaeologists,
rather than an abstract “archaeology,” remain in control.
One of the most successful examples of praxis-based archaeology in this
set concludes this review. In “The Culture of Caring and Its Destruction in
the Middle East” in Archaeology and Capitalism, Maggie Ronayne eschews
self-serving community engagement for the sake of advancing the aims of
making archaeology relevant. She states: “also demanded of us is that we work
out with communities how our skills and information can be of use to them
in self-defense organizing” (247). This shift from bettering archaeology to putting archaeologists’ skills to work for non-archaeological causes undermines
the persistent need to maintain archaeology’s boundaries, centering instead
the idea that archaeologists need to be accountable not only to their employers but to those directly affected by their decisions. Ronayne’s work assesses
the impact of proposed large-scale hydroelectric dams on archaeological resources and local cultural heritage in Turkey. She exposed a trend of devaluing local knowledge and heritage and a gender bias in which women’s work
and values were given no accord. This despite the fact that women’s work was
the basis of local cultural heritage, a heritage threatened by conflict and ethnic cleansing long before the dam project began. Ronayne’s research helped
underwrite a coalition that stopped the dam’s construction, but more importantly put the words of otherwise silenced women into the conversation about
social life in the region. Women “explain the cultural impact of Ilisu [the dam]
with reference to what they face in war, conditions in the slums of the cities,
the loss of children, and the break-up of the social and cultural framework
they had worked hard to build in their home villages” (257). The making equal
and unifying of diverse impacts on the women’s survival, and the ability of
the archaeologist in this case to record this effort as their culture and heritage, shifts the time of archaeology from past to present and the role of archaeology from research to activism. As Ronayne states, “we spoke with more
power as a result of the connection with the communities and other campaigners; and they in turn were more powerful with our support” (259).
Ultimately, the best outcome for archaeologists, communities, collaborators, and even “the archaeological” comes from acknowledging the politics that
bring about given archaeologies, the variable expected accountability of archaeologists to those embroiled in those politics, and the possibility, through
dialogue, collaboration, and commitment, for archaeologists to shift the terrain of debate from development to social justice. Following Ronayne,
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McGuire, and others, we can begin to see how archaeologists can act independent of their discipline’s history without necessarily damaging its integrity
and produce archaeologies adjusted to their circumstances rather than forcing the world to come to archaeology in order to act.
Christopher N. Matthews is Visiting Associate Professor of African and African
American Studies at Harvard University and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hofstra University. His research is in American historical archaeology with a special emphasis on the archaeology of slavery, freedom, and capitalism and the public meanings of archaeology. He has published one book, An Archaeology of History and Tradition, as well
as several articles that have appeared in Historical Archaeology, Journal of Social Archaeology, and Archaeologies.