Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique

Contributions by Greg Borgstede, Craig N. Cipolla, Praveena Gullapalli, Matthew Liebmann, Ian Lilley, Jaime R. Pagán Jiménez, Thomas C. Patterson, Robert W. Preucel, Reniel Rodriguez Ramos, Sandra Scham, Sudharshan Seneviratne, Jason Yaeger Edited by Matthew Liebmann, Uzma Z. Rizvi

Publication date:

16 September 2010

Length of book:

274 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759110052

In recent years, postcolonial theories have emerged as one of the significant paradigms of contemporary academia, affecting disciplines throughout the humanities and social sciences. These theories address the complex processes if colonialism on culture and society—with repect to both the colonizers and the colonized—to help us understand the colonial experience in its entirety. The contributors to Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique present critical syntheses of archaeological and postcolonial studies by examining both Old and New World case studies, and they ask what the ultimate effect of postcolonial theorizing will be on the practice of archaeology in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 1. Introduction: The Intersections of Archaeology and Postcolonial Studies
Chapter 2. A Brief History of Postcolonial Theory and Implications for Archaeology
Chapter 3. Heterogeneous Encounters: Colonial Histories and Archaeological Experiences
Chapter 4. Towards the Liberation of Archaeological Praxis in a "Postcolonial Colony:" The Case of Puerto Rico
Chapter 5. Postcolonial Cultural Affiliation: Essentialism, Hybridity, and NAGPRA
Chapter 6. Notions of Cultural Continuity and Disjunction in Maya Social Movements and Maya Archaeology
Chapter 7. Decolonizing Methodologies as Strategies of Practice: Operationalizing the Postcolonial Critique in the Archaeology of Rajasthan
Chapter 8. Indigenous and Postcolonial Archaeologies
Chapter 9. Archaeology, the World Bank, and Postcolonial Politics
Chapter 10. Disinheriting Heritage: Explorations in the Contentious History of Archaeology in the Middle East
Chapter 11. Situating World Heritage Sites in a Multicultural Society: The Ideology of Presentation at the Sacred City of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
Chapter 12. Conclusion: Archaeological Futures and the Postcolonial Critique

The contributors to this volume critically survey the politics and practice of archaeology globally. They look closely at both the promise and reality of 'postcolonial' archaeology, offering a significant set of critiques and questions; they ask, for example, Is the 'post' in postcolonial is really justified? Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique presents a new and inspiring group of voices from a younger generation of scholars determined to make a difference.