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Engaged Archaeology

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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Introduction

In 2007 Paul Mullins made the following observation:

The distinction between serving the interests of the state and conducting an engaged archaeology is more complicated than it might initially appear, but archaeology can emphasize that poverty and racist stereotypes simply rationalize continuing government, institutional and ideological interests. The question for many archaeologists examining inequality is not really how we can make constituent communities civically engaged; instead, the issue is how we can work alongside existing community politics and address long-standing social justice issues like color-line inequalities. (Mullins 2007: 105)

This passage is from Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement, one of the first studies to undertake a detailed analysis of how to use archaeology to address issues of social justice and civic responsibility. This book was part of a general trend toward greater political engagement in archaeology. In 2010, Setha Low and Sally...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Claire Smith & Jordan Ralph

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  1. Claire Smith
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  2. Jordan Ralph
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Correspondence to Claire Smith .

Section Editor information

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia/PPGA, Universidade Federal do Pará/UFPA, Belém, Pará, Brazil

    Marcia Bezerra

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Smith, C., Ralph, J. (2019). Engaged Archaeology. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_2646-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_2646-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

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