Description

Ethnographic perspectives are often used by archaeologists to study cultures both past and present - but what happens when the ethnographic gaze is turned back onto archaeological practices themselves? That is the question posed by this book, challenging conventional ideas about the relationship between the subject and the object, the observer and the observed, and the explainers and the explained. This book explores the production of archaeological knowledge from a range of ethnographic perspectives. Fieldwork spans large parts of the world, with sites in Turkey, the Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, Italy, Germany, the USA and the United Kingdom being covered. They focus on excavation, inscription, heritage management, student training, the employment of hired workers and many other aspects of archaeological practice. These experimental ethnographic studies are situated right on the interface of archaeology and anthropology_on the road to a more holistic study of the present and the past.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: Multiple Origins, Development and Potential of Ethnographies of Archaeology
Chapter 2 Sites of Knowledge: Different Ways of Knowing an Archaeological Excavation
3 The Mutual Constitution of Natural and Social Identities During Archaeological Fieldwork
4 A Linguistic Anthropologist's Interest in Archaeological Practice
5 Reflecting Upon Archaeological Practice: Multiple Visions of a Late Paleolithic Site in Germany
6 Pictures, Ideas, and Things: The Production and Currency of Archaeological Images
7 Studying Archaeological Fieldwork in the Field: Views from Monte Polizzo
8 Digging the Dirt: Excavation as a Social Practice
9 Realisafiction: A Day of Work at Everybody-Knows-Land
10 Landscapes of Disciplinary Power: An Ethnography of Excavation and Survey at Leskernick, UK
Chapter 11 Histories, Identity and Ownership: An Ethnographic Case Study in Archaeological Heritage Management in the Orkney Islands
12 Among Totem-Poles and Clan Power in Tanum, Sweden: An Ethnographic Perspective on the Communicative Artifacts of Heritage Management
13 Amazonian Archaeology and Local Identities
14 Conjunctures in the Making of an Ancient Maya Archaeological Site
15 Complicit Agendas: Ethnography of Archaeology as Ethical Research Practice

Product details

Published 04 May 2006
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 216
ISBN 9780759114319
Imprint AltaMira Press
Series Worlds of Archaeology
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

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