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Heading south, looking north

Why we need a post-colonial archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Abstract

Archaeology has to re-think the terms of its practice, because current debate tends to intervene at the level of theory, which leaves the discipline ungrounded in a theory of practice or a conception of the historical coming into being of archaeology as a discipline. From a South African perspective, its grand narrative is primarily concerned with the development of social theory in the West but it does not provide - it cannot provide – an account of the formation of the discipline as a social and signifying practice situated in a broader social and political context. Central to this re-thinking, I argue, are questions of social value, and the role played by archaeology in projects of restitution, social justice, memory and identity.

Type
Essay Competition
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2002

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