Convenors: Dante Angelo (Chile), Ana Bezic (Croatia), Andrés Zarankin (Brazil) and Cristopher Castro (Chile)
This theme seeks to identify needs, connections, and axes of interest to forge alliances of activism between archaeology practitioners from different parts of the denominated Global North and South. Archaeology has grown as a discipline, expanding its scope and multifarious activities and goals. Such growth certainly signals a maturation in terms of theoretical perspectives and debates, and a sophistication in the archaeological methods brought by unprecedented technological innovation. On the one hand, in our globalised world, the ever increasing examples and publication of novel research by international teams already collaborating seems to render such a goal as something that is gradually being accomplished. On the other hand, efforts to convene overlapping points from organisations like the World Archaeological Congress have provided a broader venue to discuss more democratic and accountable practices of the discipline. Despite these efforts, however, archaeology still bears the weight of the colonial legacy that has long characterised the practice of the discipline, with strong power relations between the global North and South, hardly challenging the predominance of colonial epistemologies.
The emergence of a broader spectrum of archaeology practitioners (Indigenous, feminist, and black archaeologists, to name a few), provided some degree of remediation for such a legacy. Ironically, the combined efforts and collaborations between colleagues from different parts of the world seem insufficient to counter a worrying climate of skepticism and anti-scientific sentiment that, if anything, works to worsen the conditions of disenfranchised peoples and communities. In order to come up with new options, though, this very distinction between north and south needs to be critically assessed, and what these new forms of activism will need to be weighed from the particularities that each context of action presents.
Thus, we invite sessions that could open the possibility to discuss new ethical-political standpoints that could be thought as guidelines for action by considering and addressing—but not being limited to—the following questions:
- How do the different contributions to urgent topics, such as climate change, repatriation, displacement of Indigenous communities or other, consider (or not) the relevance of local scholars and political activism?
- How can funding and technological disparities between global North and South be addressed in order to avoid unilateral research agendas?
- What issues should be addressed in order to promote a wider and more democratic participation?
- How should meaningful engagement with the contexts in which research is conducted be considered in order to promote accountability?
Contacts:
Dante Angelo
Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile
dangeloz@gmail.com
Ana Bezic
University of Rijeka, Croatia
anabezic@gmail.com
Andrés Zarankin
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
zarankin@yahoo.com
Cristopher Castro
Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile
cristopher.castro.gonzalez@alumnos.uta.cl
THEME 24 Sessions
T24/Session 01: Indigenous Knowledges and the Philosophy of Archaeology and Historical Sciences