What Concrete Forms Might an Activist Scholarly Archaeology Take? – Two Examples of Experimental Projects

Since the 1970s, scholars like Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jorgen Randers (Meadows et al. 2022 [2004]: 383–454), have been actively proposing actions to guarantee the sustainability for life outside of the ideological framework imposed within the ‘Capitalocene’ (Moore 2016). In this specific context, activist archaeology certainly has a role to play in answering the questions: “is archaeology useful?” (Dawdy 2009: 131), or “why archaeology?” (Tilley 1989: 105; McGuire 2008: xi). The genesis of these questions likely emerges from the aim of millennial and Gen Z archaeologists to use their archaeological skills meaningfully, or at least in a way that does not harm people or the environment and preferably is somehow beneficial to communities. Thus, an activist archaeology is about reorienting the focus of archaeological research and emphasizing action itself as the heart of future research programs (Stottman 2010: 9) or even as a rescue program that seeks social, economic, political, and ecological justice. This active approach challenges and transgresses the traditional bounds of academic archaeology, rather than conceptualizing activism as a potential by-product of archaeological practice (McGuire 2008: xii)

Les importations de céramique chypriote au Proche-Orient de 1050 à 323 av. J.-C.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Reply to comments

International audienceI greatly appreciate that four colleagues agreed to contribute to a constructive discussion of the degrowth movement and its potential implications for archaeology. The comments proposed by the reviewers are overall rather encouraging, notwithstanding the identification of some blind spots which will need to be developed and discussed further. The discussion also brought new ideas, and in so doing, despite some disagreements on the use of terminology, highlighted the difficulty of representing ourselves clearly, and projecting that representation into capitalist organizations, collapsing capitalist societies, or a post-capitalist world. Degrowth is axiomatically defined by this progressive transition until the advent of a post-growth society. As such, it is not a dogma defining a path but a range of possibilities that make it impossible to 'contemplate what archaeology may look like' (p. 28) in the future. As I am offered this last window for answering comments, I would like to take the opportunity to clarify and extend some of the views presented in my original article. First, a note should be added concerning the circumstances of this publication: a turning point in my relation to archaeological fieldwork occurred in the United Kingdom in 2015, following m

Arqueología distópica: la implementación de la lógica del capital en el manejo del patrimonio

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Is archaeology conceivable within the degrowth movement?

International audienceAbstract Since the 1980s, archaeology has been further embedded in a reinforced and accelerating capitalist ideology, namely neo-liberalism. Most archaeologists had no alternative but to adapt to it through concessions to the free-market economy and to the so-called mitigations taking place within development. However, it is now apparent that the ongoing global socio-ecological disaster we are facing cannot be reversed with compromises but rather with a radical engagement against the injunctions of competition and growth. I suggest that we must anticipate the necessary transformations of archaeology in the coming decades, before archaeology becomes a technical avatar of the neo-liberal dogma, or before its complete annihilation for being deemed ‘superfluous’ (Wurst 2019, 171) by the capitalist regime. In this paper, I will use the idea of ‘degrowth’ to propose a new paradigm for archaeology by applying the concepts of civil disobedience, voluntary simplicity, redistribution of means and the ethics of no-growth

Heritage Management and Aboriginal Australians: Relations in a Global, Neoliberal Economy—A Contemporary Case Study from Victoria

International audienceCultural Heritage Management in Victoria has bonded archaeologists and Aboriginal people to the logic of profitability. In this article, I argue that this approach to heritage neutralises and/or discourages any political or social interpretations relevant to aboriginal peoples, and undermines subsequent protest movements. I advocate that archaeology, as it is framed in Victoria, is participating in making the heritage 'industry' a profitable activity for Aboriginal communities, giving them an illusion of empowerment, ironically achieved through the destruction of their own non-renewable heritage. This process of commodification is consented to in exchange for financial compensation, presented as the key to emancipation. I intend here to demonstrate that this belief might in reality be detrimental to Aboriginal Australians

Dystopian Archaeologies: the Implementation of the Logic of Capital in Heritage Management

International audienceSince the 1980s, privatisation of the archaeological sector mirrored its contextual political economy. After the financial crisis of 2008, and its devastating effects on the professional community, this system has been subject to more and more criticism. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the highly problematic setup of privatised archaeology for practitioners, material culture, and the vast majority of the public. The archaeological systems in a number of countries, including Canada, Australia, and Japan are explored. A radical change from the dominant logic of capital, towards cooperative and collaborative alternatives, viable in the long-term, and relinked to people, in the present is suggested as a more feasible alternative

Alternating cycles of the politics of forgetting and remembering the past in Taiwan

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Économie et philosophie politique de l’archéologie préventive française

Un cadre économique dogmatique propre aux années 1980 Depuis 2008, une grande partie de mes recherches a été consacrée à étudier l’influence de l’économie politique post-1980 sur les pratiques archéologiques, afin d’en exposer les liens et les relations avec les pouvoirs économiques et politiques (Hamilakis 1999 : 74). Les effets de cette économie politique, définie par le terme controversé de « néolibéralisme » (Bourdieu 1998), sont observables à partir de la fin des années 1970 (Harvey 2007..

Koutroulou Magoula in Phthiotida, Central Greece: A Middle Neolithic Tell Site in Context

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