Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:24:51.830Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Slow Archaeology, Punk Archaeology, and the ‘Archaeology of Care’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2019

William Caraher*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of North Dakota, USA

Abstract

This article considers the impact of both historical and digital transhuman practices in archaeology with an eye towards recent conversations concerning punk archaeology, slow archaeology, and an ‘archaeology of care’. Drawing on Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, and Gilles Deleuze, the article suggests that current trends in digital practices risk alienating archaeological labour and de-territorializing archaeological work.

Dans cet article l'auteur examine l'impact des pratiques transhumaines historiques et numériques en archéologie en prenant compte des conversations récentes relatives à l'archéologie lente, l'archéologie punk et l'archéologie « concernée ». En s'appuyant sur les travaux d'Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul et Gilles Deleuze, l'auteur soutient que les tendances actuelles en pratiques numériques risquent d'aliéner et de déterritorialiser le travail des archéologues. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Die Auswirkungen von historischen und digitalen transhumanen Verfahren in der Archäologie vor dem Hintergrund der jüngsten Diskussionen über die sogenannte langsame Archäologie, Punk Archäologie und „beteiligte Archäologie“ werden hier untersucht. In diesem Beitrag, der von den Arbeiten von Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul und Gilles Deleuze inspiriert ist, wird darauf hingedeutet, dass die aktuellen Entwicklungen in der digitalen Praxis das Risiko eingehen, die Archäologen zu entfremden und die archäologische Arbeit zu deterritorialisieren. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agger, B. 1989. Fast Capitalism: A Critical Theory of Significance. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Alexander, J.K. 2008. The Mantra of Efficiency from Waterwheel to Social Control. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Averett, E., Counts, D. & Gordon, J. eds. 2016. Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology. Grand Forks (ND): The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.Google Scholar
Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Benello, C.G. 1981. Technology and Power: Technique as a Mode of Understanding Modernity. In: Christians, C.G. & Van Hook, J.M., eds. Jacques Ellul: Interpretative Essays. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press, pp. 91107.Google Scholar
Bevan, A. 2015. The Data Deluge. Antiquity, 89: 1473–84. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.102Google Scholar
Bevan, A., Pett, D., Bonacchi, C., Keinan-Schoonbaert, A., Lombraña González, D., Sparks, R. et al. 2014. Citizen Archaeologists. Online Collaborative Research about the Human Past. Human Computation, 1: 183–97. https://doi.org/10.15346/hc.v1i2.9Google Scholar
Bonacchi, C., Bevan, A., Pett, D., Keinan-Schoonbaert, A., Sparks, R., Wexler, J. & Wilkin, N. 2014. Crowd-sourced Archaeological Research: The MicroPasts Project. Archaeology International, 17: 6168. http://doi.org/10.5334/ai.1705Google Scholar
Caraher, W.R. 2015. Slow Archaeology. North Dakota Quarterly, 80: 4352.Google Scholar
Caraher, W.R. 2016a. Ontology, World Archaeology, and the Recent Past. American Journal of Archaeology, 120: 325–31. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.120.2.0325Google Scholar
Caraher, W.R. 2016b. Slow Archaeology: Technology, Efficiency, and Archaeological Work. In: Averett, E., Counts, D. & Gordon, J., eds. Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology. Grand Forks (ND): The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, pp. 421–41.Google Scholar
Caraher, W.R. & Rothaus, R. 2016. An Archaeology of Care. On Second Thought, Magazine of the North Dakota Humanities Council (Spring 2016): 5051.Google Scholar
Caraher, W.R., Kourelis, K. & Reinhard, A. eds. 2014. Punk Archaeology. Grand Forks (ND): The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. 1973. Archaeology: The Loss of Innocence. Antiquity, 47: 618. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X0003461XGoogle Scholar
Cowen, D. 2014. The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping the Violence of Global Trade. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Cunningham, J.J. & MacEachern, S. 2016. Ethnoarchaeology as Slow Science. World Archaeology, 48: 628–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1260046Google Scholar
Dawdy, S.L. 2016. Patina: A Profane Archaeology. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Delanda, M. 2003. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. 1992. Postscript on the Societies of Control. October, 59: 37.Google Scholar
Edgeworth, M. 2006. Ethnographies of Archaeological Practice: Cultural Encounters, Material Transformations. Lantham (MD): AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
Ellul., J. 1964. The Technological Society, trans. by Wilkinson, J.. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Everill, P. 2012. The Invisible Diggers: A Study of British Commercial Archaeology (2nd ed). Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
FM-2030. 1989. Are You a Transhuman? Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of Growth in a Rapidly Changing World. New York: Warner Books.Google Scholar
Geser, G. 2016. Towards a Web of Archaeological Linked Open Data. ARIADNE Work Package 15 [online] [accessed 30 January 2019]. Available at: <http://www.ariadne-infrastructure.eu/News/Study-Towards-a-Web-of-Archaeological-Linked-Open-Data>>Google Scholar
Given, M. 2017. Conviviality and the Life of the Soil. Cambridge Archaeology Journal, 28: 127–43. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000609Google Scholar
Given., M. 2018. The Precarious Conviviality of Water Mills. Archaeological Dialogues, 25: 7194. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203818000089Google Scholar
Gnecco, C. 2013. Digging Alternative Archaeologies. In: González-Ruibal, A., ed. Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity. New York: Routledge, pp. 6778.Google Scholar
Graham, S. 2017. Slow Archaeology? Electric Archaeologist [online] [accessed 30 January 2019]. Available at: <https://electricarchaeology.ca/2017/03/20/slow-archaeology/> [https://perma.cc/8UT4-ALM2]+[https://perma.cc/8UT4-ALM2]>Google Scholar
Hall, G. 2016. The Uberfication of the University. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/9781452958439Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Y. & Jones, A.M. 2017. Archaeology and Assemblage. Cambridge Archaeology Journal, 27: 7784. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774316000688Google Scholar
Haraway, D. 2016. Manifestly Haraway. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, R. 2011. Surface Assemblages: Towards an Archaeology in and of the Present. Archaeological Dialogues, 18: 141–61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203811000195Google Scholar
Harrison, R. 2013. Scratching the Surface: Reassembling an Archaeology in and of the Present. In: González-Ruibal, A. ed. Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity. London & New York: Routledge, pp. 4455.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. Oxford & Malden (MA): Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. & Lucas, G. 2017. The Symmetries and Asymmetries of Human–Thing Relations. A Dialogue. Archaeological Dialogues, 24: 119–37. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203817000137Google Scholar
Huggett, J. 2015. A Manifesto for an Introspective Digital Archaeology. Open Archaeology, 1: 8695. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2015-0002Google Scholar
Huggett, J. 2017. The Apparatus of Digital Archaeology. Internet Archaeology, 44. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.44.7Google Scholar
Illich, I. 1971. Deschooling Society. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Illich, I. 1975. Tools for Conviviality. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins.Google Scholar
Kansa, E. 2016. Click Here to Save the Past. In: Averett, E., Counts, D. & Gordon, J., eds. Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology. Grand Forks (ND): The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, pp. 443–72.Google Scholar
Kiddey, R. 2017. Homeless Heritage: Collaborative Social Archaeology as Therapeutic Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern, trans. by Porter, C.. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Leighton, M. 2016. Indigenous Archaeological Field Technicians at Tiwanaku, Bolivia: A Hybrid Form of Scientific Labor. American Anthropologist, 118: 742–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12682Google Scholar
Lucas, G. 2001. Critical Approaches to Fieldwork: Contemporary and Historical Archaeological Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCoy, M. 2017. Geospatial Big Data and Archaeology: Prospects and Problems Too Great to Ignore. Journal of Archaeological Science, 84: 7494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2017.06.003Google Scholar
McNeill, J.R. & Engelke, P. 2014. The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945. Cambridge (MA): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Menand, L. 2010. The Marketplace of Ideas. New York. Norton.Google Scholar
More, M. 2003. Principles of Extropy, Version 3.11.2003 [online] [accessed 30 January 2019]. Available at: <https://web.archive.org/web/20110806105153/ http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm>>Google Scholar
More, M. 2013. The Philosophy of Transhumanism. In: More, M. & Vita-More, N., eds. The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future. Chichester & New York: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 315.Google Scholar
Morgan, C. & Eve, S. 2012. DIY and Digital Archaeology: What Are You Doing to Participate? World Archaeology, 44: 521–37.Google Scholar
Morgan, C. & Wright, H. 2018. Pencils and Pixels: Drawing and Digital Media in Archaeological Field Recording. Journal of Field Archaeology, 43: 136–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2018.1428488Google Scholar
Morozov, E. 2014. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs.Google Scholar
Mullins, P. 2015. Punk Archaeology and the Mainstream. Archaeology and Material Culture [online] [accessed 30 January 2019]. Available at: <https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/punk-archaeology-and-the-mainstream/>>Google Scholar
Olivier, L. 2011. The Dark Abyss of Time: Archaeology and Memory. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira.Google Scholar
Parcak, S., Mumford, G. & Childs, C. 2017. Using Open Access Satellite Data Alongside Ground Based Remote Sensing: An Assessment, with Case Studies from Egypt's Delta. Geosciences, 7(4): 94. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences7040094Google Scholar
Pavel, C. 2010. Describing and Interpreting the Past: European and American Approaches to the Written Record of the Excavation. Bucureşti: Editura Universitaţii din Bucureşti.Google Scholar
Paynter, R. 1983. Field or Factory? Concerning the Degradation of Archaeological Labor. In: Gero, J.M., Lacy, D.M. & Blakey, M.L., eds. The Socio-Politics of Archaeology. Amherst (MA): Department of Anthropology University of Massachusetts, Amherst, pp. 1730.Google Scholar
Petrini, C. 2003. Slow Food: The Case for Taste. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Pickering, A. 1995. The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, A. 2016. Response: Mobilizing (Ourselves) for a Critical Digital Archaeology. In: Averett, E., Counts, D. & Gordon, J., eds. Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology. Grand Forks (ND): The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, pp. 493520.Google Scholar
Richardson, L.-J. 2014. Understanding Archaeological Authority in a Digital Context. Internet Archaeology, 38. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.38.1Google Scholar
Richardson, L.-J. 2017. I'll Give You ‘Punk Archaeology’, Sunshine. World Archaeology, 49: 112. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2017.1333036Google Scholar
Ritzer, G. 2003. The Technological Society: Social Theory, McDonaldization and the Prosumer. In: Jerónimo, H.M., Garcia, J.L. & Mitcham, C., eds. Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 3547.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, C.H., Cobb, P., Moss, E., Olson, B.R. & Ünlüsoy, S. 2015. Excavation is Destruction Digitization: Advances in Archaeological Practice. Journal of Field Archaeology, 40: 325–46. https://doi.org/10.1179/2042458215Y.0000000004Google Scholar
Seifried, R.M. 2014. Linked Open Data for the Uninitiated. ISAW Papers 7.26 [online] [accessed 30 January 2019]. Available at: <http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/7/seifried/>>Google Scholar
Shanks, M. & McGuire, R.H. 1996. The Craft of Archaeology. American Antiquity, 61(1): 7588. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0002731600050046Google Scholar
Shove, E. 2017. What is Wrong with Energy Efficiency? Building Research & Information, 46: 779–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2017.1361746Google Scholar
Son, W.-C. 2013. Are We Still Pursuing Efficiency? Interpreting Jacques Ellul's Efficiency Principle. In: Jerónimo, H.M., Garcia, J.L. & Mitcham, C., eds. Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 4962.Google Scholar
Stengers, I. 2018. Another Science is Possible: A Manifesto for Slow Science. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Taylor, J., Issavi, J., Berggren, A., Lukas, D., Mazzucato, C., Tung, B. & Dell'Unto, N. 2018. ‘The Rise of the Machine’: The Impact of Digital Tablet Recording in the Field at Çatalhöyük. Internet Archaeology, 47. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.47.1Google Scholar
Thomas, J. 2004. Archaeology and Modernity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tsing, A. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Witmore, C. 2014. Archaeology and the New Materialisms. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 1: 203–24. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i2.16661Google Scholar
Zylinska, J. 2009. Bioethics in the Age of New Media. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar