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An Archaeologist’s Guide to Election Season: A Preface
It’s Election Season – but what does Archaeology have to do with it?
November 8 is a mere three weeks away. Where do we start, so close to the end of what has been perhaps the most divisive and vitriolic election in the history of our country?
Over the next month, I propose to assemble a series of posts exploring the relationships between archaeology and the national and global issues facing the country as we elect our 45th President. These connections are rich, challenging, productive, and continually developing, though perhaps not immediately apparent to a general public that sees archaeology as a discipline dealing exclusively in a distant, resolved past. As we witness wars, our own and others, through images that many of us can barely comprehend from the safety of our homes; as climate change, mindless of the debates around its existence in political circles, takes its increasing toll, already displacing whole communities and leaving the Great Barrier Reef dying in its wake; as Black bodies are met with fear and violence and exposed to national input on the validity of their lives and the justification of their deaths; as sacred lands and access to clean water are denied to Native Americans in the name of profit; as women are forced to listen to powerful, damaging words about their worth and their bodies from the mouths of those in power; as we debate Constitutional Rights and our economy, our education system, our social values – one might look around and ask how the study of the past comes to bear on the painfully real issues of the present. It is a good, terribly important question.
So, what can archaeology contribute to these very real issues that divide us at our national core?
I am here to argue quite a lot. But first, let’s briefly talk about politics writ large and their relationship to the discipline and practice of archaeology.
Archaeology and Politics: A quick look at Randy McGuire’s Archaeology as Political Action (2008)
To what degree does archaeology intersect with politics? Archaeology is an incredibly diverse field, but I do venture to argue here that we have always been a political practice, and that in recent decades archaeology has moved to critically recognize and embrace its political power. As McGuire discusses in Archaeology as Political Action (2008), the realm of politics can often be perceived in direct contrast with objective science. Politics are zealous, emotional, acrimonious, and so often rife with fallacy and personal interest. On the other hand, good, objective archaeological practice – in the most traditional sense – would seek to create knowledge free of weighty, biased, and controversial issues (2008: 17). For some, this may ring true – allowing politics into our work situates us in a veritable minefield of conflicts of interest, personal and otherwise.
http://mapabing.org/2016/10/17/an-archaeologists-guide-to-election-season-a-preface/
November 8 is a mere three weeks away. Where do we start, so close to the end of what has been perhaps the most divisive and vitriolic election in the history of our country?
Over the next month, I propose to assemble a series of posts exploring the relationships between archaeology and the national and global issues facing the country as we elect our 45th President. These connections are rich, challenging, productive, and continually developing, though perhaps not immediately apparent to a general public that sees archaeology as a discipline dealing exclusively in a distant, resolved past. As we witness wars, our own and others, through images that many of us can barely comprehend from the safety of our homes; as climate change, mindless of the debates around its existence in political circles, takes its increasing toll, already displacing whole communities and leaving the Great Barrier Reef dying in its wake; as Black bodies are met with fear and violence and exposed to national input on the validity of their lives and the justification of their deaths; as sacred lands and access to clean water are denied to Native Americans in the name of profit; as women are forced to listen to powerful, damaging words about their worth and their bodies from the mouths of those in power; as we debate Constitutional Rights and our economy, our education system, our social values – one might look around and ask how the study of the past comes to bear on the painfully real issues of the present. It is a good, terribly important question.
So, what can archaeology contribute to these very real issues that divide us at our national core?
I am here to argue quite a lot. But first, let’s briefly talk about politics writ large and their relationship to the discipline and practice of archaeology.
Archaeology and Politics: A quick look at Randy McGuire’s Archaeology as Political Action (2008)
To what degree does archaeology intersect with politics? Archaeology is an incredibly diverse field, but I do venture to argue here that we have always been a political practice, and that in recent decades archaeology has moved to critically recognize and embrace its political power. As McGuire discusses in Archaeology as Political Action (2008), the realm of politics can often be perceived in direct contrast with objective science. Politics are zealous, emotional, acrimonious, and so often rife with fallacy and personal interest. On the other hand, good, objective archaeological practice – in the most traditional sense – would seek to create knowledge free of weighty, biased, and controversial issues (2008: 17). For some, this may ring true – allowing politics into our work situates us in a veritable minefield of conflicts of interest, personal and otherwise.
http://mapabing.org/2016/10/17/an-archaeologists-guide-to-election-season-a-preface/
