It’s our last discussion day next week! How sad. It’s sure
to be a good one, though, as we wrap up with thinking about the larger context
of all this work and issues to think about.
I admit that I asked for this week. Not because it’s the
last one, I swear! But because of the presence of the bone trade online. This article, though 10 years old, is a pretty good piece of journalism on the topic that covers a bit of the historical background and the trade’s colonial roots.
A quick online search can lead you to websites where you
can purchase human remains online. Obviously, this becomes an issue in
bioarchaeology when anthropologists are thinking about course
materials, how this market might influence their fieldwork, or when law
enforcement asks an anthropologist to identify a skull found in a garage. It's an old problem that has transformed into a niche market of collecting taboo curios that are increasing in value.
Before class, think about your own work and/or interests in
archaeology. How has the internet or digital technologies influenced how you
might have to handle excavation, artifacts, curation, or the dissemination of knowledge?
What ethical dilemmas do/will you have to consider?
I have two main articles for next week:
The first is by Layla Renshaw writing on her experiences
working on mass graves from the Spanish Civil War, available
through the Western Libraries.
Renshaw addresses difficult metaphysical, ethical,
and political questions about the role of archaeologists in the context of working
with the recent dead and living descendants. I am using this article as part of the discussion of ethics. She draws on ANT and the sociology of technology to
discuss the idea that “archaeology sparks a public into being.” Her point of
view is that archaeologists, even when working in the most politically and emotionally difficult of contexts, can advance public deliberation of issues by becoming active "public intellectuals". (Note: The article starts on page 35)
Secondly, this is an article that I hope will help us wrap
up the course with some good discussion and debate:
That links to the whole issue that is publicly available online, which has the theme of “Are
We All Archaeologists Now?” The article in question starts on page 255.
You might ask why I am choosing an article written
by a musician, but it touches on a lot of issues that we’ve been pondering over the
entire course. With digital technologies, information is more accessible and many of us are using these technologies as part of “knowledge mobilization” and engaging different publics. In
this digital era, what makes an archaeologist? At what point does someone become an archaeologist? How is the discipline evolving?
Who owns knowledge? Should we be gatekeepers, or are we “all archaeologists
now”?
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