Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics

The editors and contributors to this volume focus on the inherent political nature of archaeology and its impact on the practice of the discipline. Pointing to the discipline’s history of advancing imperialist, colonialist, and racist objectives, they insist that archaeology must rethink its muted professional stance and become more overtly active agents of change. The discipline is not about an abstract ?archaeological record” but about living individuals and communities, whose lives and heritage suffer from the abuse of power relationships with states and their agents. Only by recognizing this power disparity, and adopting a political ethic for the discipline, can archaeology justify its activities. Chapters range from a critique of traditional ethical codes, to examinations of the capitalist motivations and structures within the discipline, to calls for an engaged, emancipatory archaeology that improves the lives of the people with whom archaeologists work. A direct challenge to the discipline, this volume will provoke discussion, disagreement, and inspiration for many in the field.

Yannis Hamilakis is Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton and has taught at the University of Wales Lampeter (1996-2000) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2005). He has held a number of research fellowships with most recent a residential scholarship at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005-2006). He has published extensively on the politics of the past, the archaeology of the consuming body, and the prehistory of the Aegean. Philip Duke is a professor of anthropology at Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, where he has taught since 1980. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Until recently, his professional work has been conducted on the archaeology of western North America, and he is the author of, among other publications, Points in Time: Structure and Event in a Late Northern Plains Hunting Society, and co-editor of Beyond Subsistence: Plains Archaeology and the Postprocessual Critique. He also works with the Ludlow Collective at the site of the 1914 Ludlow massacre near Trinidad, Colorado. His research interests include public archaeology and repatriation issues, and currently he is investigating the nexus between the construction of the Minoan Bronze Age and contemporary tourism on Crete.