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The contributors to this volume focus on the inherent political nature of archaeology and its relationship to power, and explore how archaeologists can become more overtly agents of social change for individuals and communities.
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2015. Storytelling has always played a central role in the formation of cultures and communities. All cultures define themselves and their place in the world through their stories. Similarly, our identities are largely constructed as narratives, and it is with the aid of storytelling that we manage to conceive of ourselves – our selves – as meaningful wholes. Thus, storytelling is not ever absent: it is to be found in literature, social life, in the places we visit and the buildings we live in. This volume presents storytelling in various appearances: from ancient myths and oral history, to transmedia narratives and digital stories. Different forms of narrative are analysed, as is the use of storytelling as a method for e.g. counselling, education and research. Throughout twenty-five chapters, a compelling overview of recent research on the topic is provided, both stressing the omnipresence of storytelling and exploring what storytelling is and isn’t.
Drawing on over fifty years of writing, performance, film, architecture, photography, and culture more broadly, Imagining the Edgy City offers a compelling interdisciplinary study of South Africa's largest city.
While books on archaeological and anthropological ethics have proliferated in recent years, few attempt to move beyond a conventional discourse on ethics to consider how a discussion of the social and political implications of archaeological practice might be conceptualized differently. The conceptual ideas about ethics posited in this volume make it of interest to readers outside of the discipline; in fact, to anyone interested in contemporary debates around the possibilities and limitations of a discourse on ethics. The authors in this volume set out to do three things. The first is to track the historical development of a discussion around ethics, in tandem with the development and “disciplining” of archaeology. The second is to examine the meanings, consequences and efficacies of a discourse on ethics in contemporary worlds of practice in archaeology. The third is to push beyond the language of ethics to consider other ways of framing a set of concerns around rights, accountabilities and meanings in relation to practitioners, descendent and affected communities, sites, material cultures, the ancestors and so on.
The Anthropocene’s urgent message about imminent disaster invites us to forget about history and to focus on the present as it careens into an unthinkable future. To counter this, Louise Green engages with the theoretical framing of nature in concepts such as the “Anthropocene,” “the great acceleration,” and “rewilding” in order to explore what the philosophy of nature in the era of climate change might look like from postcolonial Africa. Utilizing a practice of reading developed in the Frankfurt school, Green rearranges narrative fragments from the “global nature industry,” which subjugates all aspects of nature to the logic of capitalist production, in order to disrupt pr...
This volume examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex colonial societies. While archaeological studies of the historic past have explored the dynamics of European colonialism, such work has largely ignored broader issues of sexuality, embodiment, commemoration, reproduction and sensuality. Recently, however, scholars have begun to recognize these issues as essential components of colonization and imperialism. This book explores a variety of case studies, revealing the multifaceted intersections of colonialism and sexuality. Incorporating work that ranges from Phoenician diasporic communities of the eighth century to Britain's nineteenth-century Australian penal colonies to the contemporary Maroon community of Brazil, this volume changes the way we understand the relationship between sexuality and colonial history.
The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial Contexts: Postcolonial Historical Archaeologies explores the complex interplay of colonial and capital formations throughout the modern world. The authors present a critical approach to this topic, trying to shift discourses in the theoretical framework of historical archaeology of capitalism and colonialism through the use of postcolonial theory. This work does not suggest a new theoretical framework as such, but rather suggests the importance of revising key theoretical terms employed within historical archaeology, arguing for new engagements with postcolonial theory of relevance to all historical archaeologists as the field de-centers from its tra...
This book addresses emancipatory narratives from two main sites in the colonial world, the Indian and southern African subcontinents. Exploring how love and revolution interrelate, this volume is unique in drawing on theories of affect to interrogate histories of the political, thus linking love and revolution together. The chapters engage with the affinities of those who live with their colonial pasts: crises of expectations, colonial national convulsions, memories of anti-colonial solidarity, even shared radical libraries. It calls attention to the specific and singular way in which notions of ‘love of the world’ were born in a precise moment of anti-colonial struggle: a love of the world for which one would offer one’s life, and for which there had been little precedent in the history of earlier revolutions. It thus offers new ways of understanding the shifts in global traditions of emancipation over two centuries.
This book traces and analyses the role of heritage in the urban transformation of the city of Cape Town. By looking at discourses of heritage and urban design, the book shows how Cape Town positions itself as an emerging global city in the context of a series of global events. The book points at how a heritage focus on the themes of post-colonial and post-apartheid reconciliation, restitution and memory in the city shifts to a focus on creativity, design and the arts. Thereby showing how traumatic remnants of colonialism and apartheid are reframed as “design challenges”. Furthermore, it argues that the idea of a transformed society is projected into a future time and the chaotic present everyday life is left to its own devices. Against this backdrop, the book lays out the opportunities for epistemological reset and decolonial reflection on the city’s deep histories, its embedded injustices and traumas that surfaced.
Since its very beginning, archaeology has in many senses always related to a much wider constituency than just archaeologists. This relationship between archaeology and the public has often been overlooked and constantly changes. Public archaeology, as a field of research and practice, has been developing since the 1970s in English-speaking countries, particularly in the United States, Britain, and Australia, and is today beginning to spread to other parts of the world. Global expansion of public archaeology comes with the recognition of the need for a careful understanding of local contexts, particularly the culture and socio-political climate. This volume critically examines the current th...