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Rural settlement in the Age of Reason

Archaeologies of capitalism and the recent history of Highland Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Chris Dalglish
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Abstract

This paper discusses the project of an archaeology of capitalism through a case study situated in the southern Scottish Highlands. It is argued that archaeology as a discipline has a significant contribution to make to discussions of the emergence and development of the social relations of capitalism. This is because archaeology has as one of its main concerns mundane social practice or routine. Changes in everyday routine and the associated material environment made the ideological aspects of capitalism, focusing on the individual and private property, conceivable for some. These changes to the everyday environment were instigated by the landlords, inspired by enlightenment thought, in order to secure their ownership of certain estates as private property, which had been in dispute under the clan system. Response of the rural population to Improvement was varied and their continuing relationship with their landlord evolved with reference to certain key structuring dispositions. The essential issue for the farming population was land rights. The major conclusion of this paper as concerns archaeologies of capitalism is that we must distinguish between capitalism (an ideology of the individual made knowable in routine practice) and capitalist societies (those societies where capitalism is widespread but not necessarily universal). This allows consideration of varied experience of and interaction with capitalism in the past.

Keywords

capitalismroutineland rightsScottish Highlands
Type
Discussion Article
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , September 2001 , pp. 2 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2001

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