K. Anne Pyburn

Engaged Archaeology: Whose Community? Which Public?

In this discussion, I treat community archaeology as a subset of public archaeology and consider the issues of community archaeology as a preamble to discussion of wider issues engendered by archaeologists attempting to orient their efforts to a public sphere. The most undertheorized aspect of community archaeology is the idea of community itself. Although archaeologists often discuss the competing concerns of various interest groups, such groups are either regarded as subgroups of a single community or as competing communities, but the term community is defined with a description of a particular set of people or simply left undefined. Here, I problematize the concept of community on three fronts: (1) any individual belongs to multiple communities; (2) community archaeology frequently reifies imaginary communities, which have been created by the archaeologists; and (3) community archaeology needs to consider not only descendant and local communities, but also those communities with political and economic power.

Practising Archaeology — As if it Really Matters

Abstract People care about archaeology for a variety of competing reasons. Archaeologists no longer ignore this as they once did, but few have come to terms on a pragmatic level with their responsibility to the public. Here I outline my own ideas about public engagement and the place of ethnography in the archaeologists professional practice. While long-term collaborations between archaeologists and others are almost always preferable, they are rarely feasible, and lofty ideals can have negative repercussions for daily practice and political action. I advocate Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a method that archaeologists untrained in ethnography can use to expediently develop ethnographically sensitive and respectful relationships. I also advocate that archaeologists be honest about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it relates to what they are actually trained to do. This is an important step since archaeologists need to be able to see themselves as one group of stakeholders with a right to advocate their position, but no right to ultimate control of the resources that they use to create an archaeological record. PAR is structured to ensure that project outcomes are not determined in advance. This means that the perspectives and objectives of archaeologists, even when they are allied with political and economic power, will not always prevail. I conclude with a description of a current community museums project I am supporting in Kyrgyzstan where I have put as much energy into transparency as into ethnography.

Preservation as ‘Disaster Capitalism’: The Downside of Site Rescue and the Complexity of Community Engagement

Abstract As ethics have increasingly become a topic of interest for archaeologists, ‘heritage preservation’ has become harder to define. What was once thought to be a very simple and benign idea is now seen clearly as a colonial construction. There are no reliable rules to guide decisions about how heritage should be preserved, even if it is possible to determine which heritage should be preserved. However, most archaeologists and preservationists accept that the final say belongs with the people whose heritage or community is the focus of a preservation programme. In this paper I consider how imposed preservation schemes, buttressed by hyped-up public concern about the ‘loss’ of archaeological sites, can alienate people from their resources, making them vulnerable to predatory organizations. I bring in contrasting case studies from my own work in Belize and Kyrgyzstan to exemplify the complex ramifications of promoting preservation.

Archaeology without Boundaries

Authors in this issue give examples of archaeologists learning to see the socio-political and economic frames of their research and show how we can begin to expand the limits of our comprehension of heritage.ResumenEn esta edición los autores proporcionan ejemplos de arqueólogos que aprenden a ver los marcos sociopolíticos y económicos de su investigación y muestran como podemos empezar a ampliar los límites de nuestra comprensión del patrimonio.RésuméLes auteurs de ce numéro donnent des exemples d’archéologues qui apprennent à percevoir les cadres sociopolitique et économique de leur recherche et montrent comment on peut élargir les limites de notre compréhension du patrimoine.