Synopses & Reviews
The second edition of
Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, has been thoroughly updated and revised, and features top scholars who redefine the theoretical and political agendas of the field, and challenge the usual distinctions between time, space, processes, and people.
- Defines the relevance of archaeology and the social sciences more generally to the modern world
- Challenges the traditional boundaries between prehistoric and historical archaeologies
- Discusses how archaeology articulates such contemporary topics and issues as landscape and natures; agency, meaning and practice; sexuality, embodiment and personhood; race, class, and ethnicity; materiality, memory, and historical silence; colonialism, nationalism, and empire; heritage, patrimony, and social justice; media, museums, and publics
- Examines the influence of American pragmatism on archaeology
- Offers 32 new chapters by leading archaeologists and cultural anthropologists
Review
“Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism is a great collection of texts to teach from, but it is much more than that. Preucel and Mrozowski have put together a landmark volume that combines a diversity of exciting contributions with a common intellectual agenda and purpose. One comes away from reading The New Pragmatism with a sense of a serious, mature discipline that combines academic rigour with social engagement.”
—Matthew Johnson, University of Southampton
“Far more than a second edition, this is a fully transformed, cutting- edge, thorough, truly monumental book that captures the richness of archaeological theory today for introductory and advanced readers alike.”
—Stephen Silliman, University of Massachusetts, Boston
“The new pragmatism advanced by the editors places archaeology within its social context, importantly in ways that can serve contemporary needs in the modern world. Archaeology is no longer innocent.”
—Peter Bellwood, Australian National University
"This collection of papers works beautifully as an overview of contemporary archaeological theory. It's framing as 'The New Pragmatism' is quite appropriate given the discipline's challenge to better address current social contexts and human needs."
—Dean Saitta, University of Denver
Synopsis
This completely revised second edition of Contemporary Archaeology in Theory challenges the traditional boundaries between prehistoric and historical archaeologies, as well as those between time, space, things, and people. Essays by a distinguished group of archaeologists outline the emergence of a socially conscious archaeology by addressing the material mediation of contemporary social problems such as colonialism, industrialism, racialization, and globalization. Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism investigates the gradual incorporation of questions of identity, meaning, agency, and practice alongside those of system, process, and structure. This new edition is an essential reader for students and a thought-provoking assessment of the field for all archaeologists, indigenous peoples, and the concerned lay public.
About the Author
Robert W. Preucel is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten Curator of the American Section at the University Museum, and Director of the Penn Center for Native American Studies. His most recent book is
Archaeological Semiotics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 in paper).
Stephen A. Mrozowski is the founding director of the Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Anthropology. He has published more than sixty scholarly articles and monographs and is the author of The Archaeology of Class in Urban America (2006).
Table of Contents
List of Tables and Figures x
List of Contributors xiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Part I The New Pragmatism 1
Part II Landscapes, Spaces, and Natures 51
1 The Temporality of the Landscape 59
Tim Ingold
2 Identifying Ancient Sacred Landscapes in Australia: From Physical to Social 77
Paul S. C. Tacon
3 Landscapes of Punishment and Resistance: A Female Convict Settlement in Tasmania, Australia 92
Eleanor Conlin Casella
4 Amazonia: The Historical Ecology of a Domesticated Landscape 104
Clark L. Erickson
Part III Agency, Meaning, and Practice 129
5 Practice and History in Archaeology: An Emerging Paradigm 137
Timothy R. Pauketat
6 Technology's Links and Chaınes: The Processual Unfolding of Technique and Technician 156
Marcia-Anne Dobres
7 Structure and Practice in the Archaic Southeast 170
Kenneth E. Sassaman
8 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California 191
Kent G. Lightfoot, Antoinette Martinez, and Ann M. Schiff
Part IV Sexuality, Embodiment, and Personhood 217
9 Good Science, Bad Science, or Science as Usual? Feminist Critiques of Science 226
Alison Wylie
10 On Personhood: An Anthropological Perspective from Africa 244
John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff
11 Girling the Girl and Boying the Boy: The Production of Adulthood in Ancient Mesoamerica 256
Rosemary A. Joyce
12 Domesticating Imperialism: Sexual Politics and the Archaeology of Empire 265
Barbara L. Voss
Part V Race, Class, and Ethnicity 281
13 The Politics of Ethnicity in Prehistoric Korea 290
Sarah M. Nelson
14 Historical Categories and the Praxis of Identity: The Interpretation of Ethnicity in Historical Archaeology 301
Sian Jones
15 Beyond Racism: Some Opinions about Racialism and American Archaeology 311
Roger Echo-Hawk and Larry J. Zimmerman
16 A Class All Its Own: Explorations of Class Formation and Conflict 325
LouAnn Wurst
Part VI Materiality, Memory, and Historical Silence 339
17 Money Is No Object: Materiality, Desire, and Modernity in an Indonesian Society 347
Webb Keane
18 Remembering while Forgetting: Depositional Practices and Social Memory at Chaco 362
Barbara J. Mills
19 Public Memory and the Search for Power in American Historical Archaeology 385
Paul A. Shackel
20 Re-Representing African Pasts through Historical Archaeology 404
Peter R. Schmidt and Jonathan R. Walz
Part VII Colonialism, Empire, and Nationalism 423
21 Archaeology and Nationalism in Spain 432
Margarita Dı´az-Andreu
22 Echoes of Empire: Vijayanagara and Historical Memory, Vijayanagara as Historical Memory 445
Carla M. Sinopoli
23 Conjuring Mesopotamia: Imaginative Geography and a World Past 459
Zainab Bahrani
24 Confronting Colonialism: The Mahican and Schaghticoke Peoples and Us 470
Russell G. Handsman and Trudie Lamb Richmond
Part VIII Heritage, Patrimony, and Social Justice 491
25 The Globalization of Archaeology and Heritage A Discussion with Arjun Appadurai 498
26 Sites of Violence: Terrorism, Tourism, and Heritage in the Archaeological Present 508
Lynn Meskell
27 An Ethical Epistemology of Publicly Engaged Biocultural Research 525
Michael L. Blakey
28 Cultures of Contact, Cultures of Conflict? Identity Construction, Colonialist Discourse, and the Ethics of Archaeological Practice in Northern Ireland 534
Audrey Horning
Part IX Media, Museums, and Publics 551
29 No Sense of the Struggle: Creating a Context for Survivance at the NMAI 558
Sonya Atalay
30 The Past as Commodity: Archaeological Images in Modern Advertising 571
Lauren E. Talalay
31 The Past as Passion and Play: Catalhoyuk as a Site of Conflict in the Construction of Multiple Pasts 582
Ian Hodder
32 Copyrighting the Past? Emerging Intellectual Property Rights Issues in Archaeology 593
George P. Nicholas and Kelly P. Bannister
Index 618