The Intersections of Identity and Politics in Archaeology, Seminarium, Artykuły nieskatalogowane
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The Intersections of Identity and Politics in Archaeology
Author(s): Lynn Meskell
Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31 (2002), pp. 279-301
Published by: Annual Reviews
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Annual Review of
Anthropology.
Annu.Rev.
Anthropol.
2002. 31:279-301
doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085457
Copyright@
2002
by
AnnualReviews. All
rights
reserved
First
published
online as a Review in Advanceon June4, 2002
OF IDENTITYAND POLITICS
IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Lynn
Meskell
Department
Columbia
University,
1200Amsterdam
Avenue,
New
York,
NY
10027;
email:
lmm64@columbia.edu
Key
Words
ethnicity,
nationalism,
gender,diaspora,postcolonialism
E Abstract This
paper
tracesthe
conjunction
of two interrelated
epistemicphe-
nomenathathave
begun
to
shape
the
discipline
sincethe
early
1990s.Thefirstentails
theorizing
social
identity
in
past
societies:
specifically,
how sociallives areinscribed
by
the
experiences
of
gender,ethnicity,sexuality,
and so on. The otherconstitutes
the rise of a
politicized
andethical
archaeology
thatnow
recognizes
its activerole
in
contemporary
andsocial
theory,
but
they
are
fundamentally
driven
by
the
powerful
voices of once
marginalizedgroups
andtheirnewfound
place
in the circles
of academic
legitimacy.
I
argue
thatour
disciplinary
reticenceto embracethe
politics
of
identity,
bothin our
investigations
of the
past
andourimbrications
in the
present,
has muchto do with
archaeology's
lack
of
reflexivity,
both
personal
and
disciplinary,
concurrentwithitsantitheoretical
tendencies.Theresidualforceof thelattershouldnot
be
underestimated,
specifically
in
regard
to field
practices
andthe
tenacity
of academic
boundaries.
GETTINGPERSONAL
Returning
home to Australiain
2000, I
was remindedthatracismrunsriot in the
small towns and suburbsof this
supposedlyyoung
and
lucky country.My
first
recollectionis a
newspaperclipping,placedprominently,advocating
that"white"
Australians
stop apologizing
to
Aborigines
for the sustainedatrocitiesof colo-
nization and
genocide.
Australiais
largely populatedby migrants
of Britishand
European
descent whose recombinantidentities are often
privileged
over newer
foreign
arrivals.Youcan feel how
prejudice
is
enacted,
each conversationsuffused
with
deep-seated
fears
surrounding
difference-be it
racial, ethnic, cultural,
or
even
sexual.
The
federal
government
had
just legislated against
same-sex cou-
ples'
or
single people's rights
to in vitro fertilization
(IVF)
treatment:It declared
that such
people
exist outside the bounds of the natural
family.
Dislocation and
mis/identification
are often foundationalin
delineating
what
Irigaray
calls the
burningquestion
of our time:
identity.
Put
simply, identity
refers to the
ways
in
0084-6570/02/1021-0279$
14.00
279
THE INTERSECTIONS
ofAnthropology,
cultureandis enunciated
through
the discoursesof
nationalism,
so-
ciopolitics,postcolonialism,diaspora,
and
globalism.
Both trendshave been
tacitly
shapedby anthropological
280
MESKELL
(Jenkins
1996,
p.4).
Inthe"socialandcultural
sciences,
whatwasoncecalled
'identity'
in thesenseof
social,
sharedsameness
is
today
often
discussedwithreferenceto difference.Difference
points
to the
contrastive
aspect
of identitiesand
therebyemphasizes
andcollectivitiesare
distinguished
intheirsocialrelationswith
today
coalescesaround
ge-
nealogy,heritage,citizenship,
and
sameness,
but
underlying
the
implicit
conditionof
plurality"
thatarealsodiverse
concernsaboutdisenfranchisement
anddifference.
and
troublingcontemporary
Theconstitutive
outside,
premised
on exclusionand
otherness,
forms
thecorona
of difference
through
whichidentitiesareenunciated.
Why
has
archaeology
been
these
topics,
to considerthem
integral
to
archaeological
praxis?
The
discipline
is
fundamentally
social:social
life,
social
history,
social
meanings,
evensocial
theory.
Theoretical
time
lag
andlackof
sociopolitical
en-
gagementmight
be
justifications
forour
disciplinary
the
political
profile;
however,
is
alwayspersonal.
Archaeology
whichcertain
intellectual
shares
with
anthropology
strandsare
prefigured-those
that
specificbiographical
thatareinflectedwithour
lens
through
ownlifetime
experiences
and
preoccupations.
Yet
part
of thereason
forourslow
of
identitypoliticsmight
bethelackof
personal
narrative,
suchasthe
development
above,
andself-reflexive
analysis
of ourownmotivesand
practices.
Inthe
past
two
decades,following
the
literary
have
produced
a surfeitof in-
turn,anthropologists
studies
(Clifford1997,
Clifford&Marcus
1986,
Geertz
1995,Gupta
&
Ferguson
1997)
and
poetics
of
practice
trospective
archaeologists
feel their
subjects
are dead and buried-as
opposed
to the conundrumsfaced
by
fieldworkwith
participants-and
that
they
arenot
implicated
in the
representation
and
struggles
of
living peoples.
The ethicaldimensionof our work is often over-
looked or renderedmute
by
force of scientific
objectivity
and research
agendas.
Fieldworkis still shroudedin
mystique
for
ethnographers,
whereasit is
generally
consideredmundanein our
discipline
(Lucas2001).
Thetacticsof
fieldwork,
its in-
terventionsand
ramifications,
have
onlyrecently
beencalledinto
question
(Fotiadis
1993;
Hodder
1998,1999;
Meskell
2001b;
Politis
2001).
Westernacademics
(Ghosh1992).Presumably
them-
selves could be characterizedas a
highly mobile,
rootless
group(often by
virtue
of
occupation),
who areon the whole
analytical
andsomewhatdetachedfrom
pol-
itics,
despite
theirleftist
leanings. Perhapsby getting personal,archaeology
has
finally
enteredthe
contemporary
field of
debate;Marxist,feminist,
indigenous,
queer,
disenfranchised,
and
politicizedarchaeologies
arethe most
transparent
ex-
amples.
In the
past
20
years
these
archaeologies
have revitalizedthe
field,
made
it
socially
relevant and
cross-disciplinary,
and
given
some much-neededheart
and soul to an
archaeology
miredin
systems, process,
anddisembodiedexternal
constraints.
Inthis
arena,
archaeology
as a
discipline
has
something
to
contribute,
otherthan
simplyproviding
ancientfuel to the fire of land
claims,
ethnic
superiority,
or his-
torical
lineages.Identity
issues in
archaeology-be they
studiesof class
inequality,
genderbias,
sexual
specificity,politics
and
nation,heritagerepresentation,
oreven
otherindividuals
whichindividuals
andcollectivities
(Stkefeld
1999,
pp.417-18).
Self-definition
reluctant
to formulate
IDENTITYANDPOLITICS 281
fundamental
topics
like
selfhood, embodiment,
and
being-have
the
capacity
to
connect ourfield with other
disciplines
in
academebutmore
importantly
with the
wider
community
at
large.Theorizingidentity
forms a criticalnexus in academic
discourse
bringingtogethersociologists, anthropologists,political
scientists,
psy-
chologists, geographers,
historians,
and
philosophers
(Jenkins 1996,
p.
7).
The
topic
framesa diverse set of intellectual
positions
from Giddens'
(1991)
notions
of
modernity
and
self-identity,
to those
surroundingpostmodernism
and differ-
ence
(Bauman1992,
Butler
1995,
Derrida
1978),
to feministinterventions
(Butler
1990, 2000;
Lennon
& Whitford
1994)
and
the
political struggles
involved
in
the
global resurgence
of nationalistand ethnic tensions
(Barth2000,
Cohen
2000).
Bauman
suggests
that
identity
has come to
operate
as a
verb,
ratherthana
noun,
and
occupies
the
ontological
statusof botha
project
anda
postulate(1996, p. 19).
Subjectivity
andhuman
agency
arealso
central.
Following
Foucault
(1978,
p.
xiv),
this is not tantamountto a
theory
of the
knowingsubject
or modernindividualism
at its extremebutrathermoves towarda
theory
of discursive
practices.
IDENTITIESIN THEPAST
As demonstrated
by
the enmeshedthemesandevocativestudiesdescribed
below,
identitiesare
multiply
constructedandrevolve arounda set of iterative
practices
thatare
always
in
process, despite
theirmaterialand
symbolic
substrata.Who we
are,
whatwe
study,
andthe
questions
we askarenot
simplytrendypolemics
of
high
modernity:
These formulationsunderscorethe
types
of
archaeology,
the level of
politicalengagement,
andthe
points
of connection
archaeologistsexperience.
The
politics
of locationis centralto our
understanding
of
archaeologicalsubjects
and
affectsus as
practitionerstoday.
Partof that
locatedness,
however,
entailsevaluat-
ing
the
historicity
of our
conceptual
frameworksand
challenging
their
seemingly
naturalor foundationalconstitution.
Identity
constructionand maintenance
may
have
always
been salientin the
past;
taxonomic
designations
suchas
ethnicity,gen-
der,
or
sexuality,
for
example,may
not have existed as the discrete
categories
we
findso familiar
(Meskell 1999,2001a).
Many
of thesedomainsarenow
beingrefig-
uredin
contemporarysociety (Yanagisako
&
Delaney 1995)
and should
similarly
be
interrogated
more
fully
before
they
are
applied
to
archaeological
or historical
contexts.If we fail to
push
these
questionsfurther,
we riskanelision of
difference,
conflating
ancientand modern
experience
in the
process.
Whatmakes
questions
of
identity
so
intriguing
is how
specific
societies evoked such different
responses
promptedby categorical
differencesin their
understandings
and constructionsof
social domains.
Archaeology'sengagement
with
identity
issues could be describedas diffident.
If one chartsthe
development
of
archaeology's
commitmentto
identity and/or
politics,
as reflectedin conferencesessions at the
Society
of AmericanArcheolo-
gists meetings,
for
example,
theresultsdemonstratea
relatively
recentand
gradual
growth
in interest
(see Figure1).
Therehas been a
slippage
betweenthe
epistemic
REVEALING
282
MESKELL
16 -
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.....................................
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i
...-..
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12-
-
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10
= 8i
Z'
4 -
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Year
Figure
1
Society
of American
Archaeologists
sessionsfrom1991to 2001.
subjects
of
study
and the
recognition
of
context,
implication,
and
connectivity
in
contemporarysettings.
Yet as
many
scholarshave
argued,archaeology
as a dis-
cipline
was
forged
in
conjunction
with the
burgeoning
national
identity
and state
formationin
Europe
and
elsewhere,
in itself a
very specific
andreductionistcon-
strualof
identity.
However,
the
particularstudy
of
identity
in
past
societies has
followed several varianttimelines. For
example, ethnicity
is a
category
thathas
sustainedinterest since the nineteenth
century,foregroundedby
writerssuch as
Morgan,
Kossina,
and Childe
(Trigger
1989),
spurred
on
by
the
refashioning
of
national
boundaries,
diasporic
movements,
and ethnic tensions within twentieth-
centuryEurope.
We
might
look to the
negative
associationsof
early
ethnicstudies
andtheir
politicaldeployment
to
explain
the
subsequent
time
lag
betweenthe first
half of the twentieth
century
and its ratherdifferentarticulation
in
very
recent
scholarship.Additionally,
interest
in
class
or statushas a
longer history
thanthe
study
of
gender
or
sexuality.
Issues of class and statuswere deemed more rele-
vant to social structureat
large,
albeit
from
an
unreflexive
male
perspective.
In
archaeology,specific
vectors of
identity
reachtheirown historicalmoment
when
the
interpretive
time and
space
make it
possible-recent
interestin
sexuality
is a
salient
example-although
archaeology
has been out of
synch
with
developments
elsewhere.
Gender
archaeology
arrivedlate on the theoreticalscene
(Conkey
&
Spector
1984),
first
through
the lens of first-wave feminist
theory (Claassen 1992a,
Engelstad
1991)
andthen
by
a
flurry
of substantivecase studies
outlining
women's
I......
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