AAA Annual Meeting Program
AAANET Home  >  Annual Meeting  > Program Search 

AAA Annual Meeting Program Details

<< Back to Search Results  |  Start New Search >>

View Session Details
Paper Information:
This paper may be of particular interest to:  Practicing and Applied Anthropologists     Students
Type: Paper
Paper Title: "CONSTRUCTING THE PAST, MAKING HISTORY": ON THE ETHICAL AND HISTORICAL IMPERATIVE FOR ETHNOGRAPHIC ARCHAEOLOGY
Author: QUETZIL CASTANEDA (Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology / Indiana University)   
Date/Time: Sat., 2:30 PM
Co-Author(s): QUETZIL CASTANEDA (Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology / Indiana University) 
Abstract: In the process of constructing the past, archaeology makes history. This paper explains what is meant by “archaeology makes history.” Less the agent of history, archaeology is the context, motivation, and situation in which history is being made by diverse actors on the ground in the process of archaeological research. In other words, archaeological research projects are situations in which an experiential meaning and historical value for the persons and communities involved in archaeology. The content of this history that is made in and through archaeology is, in other words, the sociological dimensions and processes of archaeological research. I I argue that there is a scientific imperative that archaeologists figure out ways to start conducting ongoing ethnographic documentation of the social contexts, sociological dimensions, and historical processes of archaeological research. I define this task and its agenda as a precise form of “ethnographic archaeology” and differentiate it from related new initiatives that are variously known as “ethnography of archaeology,” “archeological ethnography,” and “archaeological ethnography.” This paper presents concrete ways that archaeologists might actualize such autoethnography or "self"-ethnographic and historical documentation.

Program Number: 4-0715
Session Title: ETHNOGRAPHIES OF AND IN ARCHAEOLOGIES: COLLABORATIONS, METHODS, AND OBJECTIVES IN AN EMERGENT SUBFIELD
Session Sponsor: Archaeology Division
Session Date/Time: Sat., 1:45 PM-3:30 PM
Organizer(s): JENNIFER MATHEWS (Trinity University), QUETZIL CASTANEDA (Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology / Indiana University) 
Chair(s): JENNIFER MATHEWS (Trinity University)  
View Session Details


Schedule-at-a-Glance

If you have any questions about the program, please contact the AAA Meetings Department at aaameetings@aaanet.org.