How (Not) to “Study Up” : Points and Pitfalls When Studying International Heritage Regimes

The article is in large part a result of our time working together at Stan- ford Archaeology Centre (SAC). Thus, Hølleland would like to thank the Research Council of Norway for its HUMEVAL grant (Grant number: 284384/F10 - ISPHUM: Støtte til forskergrupper 2018–2021) and Prof. Lynn Meskell for her invitation to SAC, both of which enabled her stay. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their detailed and constructive feedback on the draft paper.Peer reviewedPostprin

Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology

Relational Identities and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology explores the benefits and consequences of archaeological theorizing on and interpretation of the social agency of nonhumans as relational beings capable of producing change in the world. The volume cross-examines traditional understanding of agency and personhood, presenting a globally diverse set of case studies that cover a range of cultural, geographical, and historical contexts. Agency (the ability to act) and personhood (the reciprocal qualities of relational beings) have traditionally been strictly assigned to humans. In case studies from Ghana to Australia to the British Isles and Mesoamerica, contributors to this volume demonstrate that objects, animals, locations, and other nonhuman actors also potentially share this ontological status and are capable of instigating events and enacting change. This kind of other-than-human agency is not a one-way transaction of cause to effect but requires an appropriate form of reciprocal engagement indicative of relational personhood, which in these cases, left material traces detectable in the archaeological record. Modern dualist ontologies separating objects from subjects and the animate from the inanimate obscure our understanding of the roles that other-than-human agents played in past societies. Relational Identities and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology challenges this essentialist binary perspective. Contributors in this volume show that intersubjective (inherently social) ways of being are a fundamental and indispensable condition of all personhood and move the debate in posthumanist scholarship beyond the polarizing dichotomies of relational versus bounded types of persons. In this way, the book makes a significant contribution to theory and interpretation of personhood and other-than-human agency in archaeology.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1141/thumbnail.jp

Introduction: Toward an Engaged Feminist Heritage Praxis

We advocate a feminist approach to archaeological heritage work in order to transform heritage practice and the production of archaeological knowledge. We use an engaged feminist standpoint and situate intersubjectivity and intersectionality as critical components of this practice. An engaged feminist approach to heritage work allows the discipline to consider women’s, men’s, and gender non-conforming persons’ positions in the field, to reveal their contributions, to develop critical pedagogical approaches, and to rethink forms of representation. Throughout, we emphasize the intellectual labor of women of color, queer and gender non-conforming persons, and early white feminists in archaeology

Did you sleep well on your headrest? – Anthropological perspectives on an ancient Egyptian implement

This paper explores how recent anthropological methodologies (materialities approach) as well as concepts at the interface between archaeology and anthropology (experiential and sensual archaeology) inevitably widens the boundaries of Egyptology. Egyptology however does not only have to be the recipient of new ideas. The material culture of ancient Egypt can equally enrich the discussion of new intellectual frameworks like New Materialism or New Materialities within anthropology. Testing advantages, practicalities and limitations of such theories with the help of the materiality of objects can lead either to their verification and subsequent implementation or in contrast to a – partial – falsification and rework. The crossing point between anthropology and Egyptology is especially interesting and beneficial for the discussion of unprovenanced museum objects whose information regarding the context of origin and any indication of what happened with the artefacts between the moment of discovery and today is completely or partially lost. Taking inspiration from Latour’s actants, Barad’s agential realism and Bennett’s thing power – relating the potential of agency to materials and objects in human lives – the presented case study contributes to a discussion of the physical relationship of material objects and the human body focusing on states when materiality seeps deliberately and dangerously into immateriality. This is explored at the example of unpublished headrests from the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil (Wales, UK) by looking on the intersection of bodies with the material that also could be interpreted as inter-material communication. Impressions of fabric on their wooden surface are presumably the imprint of bedding intended to ensure comfortable sleep telling us about the sensual experience using these artefacts. The contact between skin and rough wood needed to be alleviated. This theoretical discussion is then set against an experimental and experiential archaeological approach focusing on sensual experiences with these headrests

Cosmopolitan Archeologies

This book delves into the politics of contemporary archaeology in an increasingly complex international environment. Describing various forms of cosmopolitan engagement, the contributors explore the implications of applying the cosmopolitan ideals of obligation to others and respect for cultural difference to archaeological practice, showing that those ethics increasingly demand the rethinking of research agendas. While cosmopolitan archaeologies must be practiced in contextually specific ways, what unites and defines them is archaeologists’ acceptance of responsibility for the repercussions of their projects, as well as their undertaking of heritage practices attentive to the concerns of the living communities with whom they work. These concerns may require archaeologists to address the impact of war, the political and economic depredations of past regimes, the livelihoods of those living near archaeological sites, or the incursions of transnational companies and institutions

World Heritage and cultural diversity in Oceania

This article examines how the universalizing framework of world heritage has been expanded in relation to the archaeological heritage in Oceania with the objective of satisfying the imperatives of a post-colonial world. We consider the idea of ​​an "Australian turn" in global approaches to heritage - and in particular World Heritage - that has emerged from the participation of archaeologists and other heritage professionals with Aboriginal communities in Australia and other parts of Oceania. Colleagues from other parts of Oceania have undoubtedly contributed to this "turn", as have those who work in Oceania from other countries such as Canada, France, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Nevertheless, There seems to be a broad recognition that Australians have made and continue to make the biggest difference at world heritage level. The characteristic feature of this "turn" is the valorization of social value - contemporary heritage values ​​of living cultures, strongly focused on intangible heritage - together with the scientific valorization of tangible archaeological resources. The last part of the work considers the continuation of the significant resistance of some sectors to these important mechanisms to accommodate cultural diversity. strongly focused on intangible heritage - together with the scientific valorization of tangible archaeological resources. The last part of the work considers the continuation of the significant resistance of some sectors to these important mechanisms to accommodate cultural diversity. strongly focused on intangible heritage - together with the scientific valorization of tangible archaeological resources. The last part of the work considers the continuation of the significant resistance of some sectors to these important mechanisms to accommodate cultural diversity

Community Heritage Work in Africa: Village-Based Preservation and Development

This paper examines alternatives to top-down approaches to heritage management and development. One of the key issues facing communities around the globe today is the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD)--the determination of heritage values by “experts” and government officials on behalf of the people. It is all too common to find local people alienated by such practices and searching for ways in which they can take ownership of their own heritage. Community-based research that shares power and is participatory is one avenue that is quickly developing in many regions around the globe.In Africa, a number of villages and other small communities have taken the initiative to preserve and develop their heritage, free of outside control. Important lessons may be drawn from these experiences, particularly the use of discourse-based research that captures how the people define and live out their heritages through everyday practice

Beyond ‘Natural’ and ‘Cultural’ Heritage: Towards an Ontological Politics of Heritage in the Age of Anthropocene

The critique of the separation of natural and cultural heritage is now well established. Rather than repeat arguments against what many would now acknowledge as an artificial separation, this paper considers the implications of working within the expanded field that is created for heritage when the dissolution of the boundaries between natural and cultural heritage is taken as given. I argue that embracing this dissolution allows us to reorient and reconceptualize heritage. Heritage is understood here as a series of diplomatic properties that emerge in the dialogue of heterogeneous human and non-human actors who are engaged in practices of caring for and attending to the past in the present. As such, heritage functions towards assembling futures, and thus might be more productively connected with other pressing social, economic, political, and ecological issues of our time. Indeed, we need not look far to comprehend alternative forms of heritage-making that already model such connectivity ontologies. Fundamental to understanding the value of these alternative heritage ontologies is the recognition of ontological plurality: that different forms of heritage practices enact different realities and hence work to assemble different futures. Following on from this point, I sketch out an ontological politics of and for heritage—a sense of how heritage could be oriented towards composing “common worlds” or “common futures”, whilst maintaining a sensitivity to the ways in which each domain of heritage relates to a particular mode of existence. At stake here is the acknowledgement that each such mode of existence produces its own particular worlds and its own specific futures. I do this within the context of a consideration of the implications of the recognition of a certain set of entanglements of culture with nature, the folding together of what we used to term the human and the non-human, which characterizes our contemporary moment. To illustrate these points, I introduce the framework for a new collaborative research program, “Assembling alternative futures for heritage,” which considers the implications of working across an expanded field of heritage practices and attempts to reconfigure the relationship between heritage and other modalities of caring for the future