‘Only connect’ Global and local networks, contexts and fieldwork

Ecumene (continues as Cultural Geographies)

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 67-104

  Pluciennik, Mark ^a   Drew, Quentin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WALES   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749624487     PISSN: 09674608     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/096746080000700104     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. R. Hodges, G. Saraci, W. Bowden, O. Gilkes, K. Lako, A. Lane, S. Martin, J. Mitchell, J. Moreland, S. O'Hara, M. Pluciennik and L. Watson, ‘Late-antique and Byzantine Butrint: interim report on the port and its hinterland (1994-95)’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 (1997), pp. 207-34.
2. A. Gupta and J. Ferguson, ‘Discipline and practice: “The Field” as site, method, and location in anthropology’, in A. Gupta and J. Ferguson, eds, Anthropological locations: boundaries and grounds of a field science (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997), pp. 1-46
3. J. Clifford and G. Marcus, eds, Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986), pp. 165-93
4. G. Marcus, ‘Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography’, Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995), pp. 95-117
5. J. Robbins and S. Bamford, eds, Fieldwork revisited: changing contexts of ethnographic practice in the era of globalization: special issue of Anthropology and Humanism 22 (1997)
6. A. Appadurai, ‘Putting hierarchy in its place’, Cultural Anthropology 3 (1988), pp. 36-49
7. B. Jackson and E. Ives, eds, The world observed: reflections on the fieldwork process (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1996)
8. E.g. T. Asad, ed, Anthropology and the colonial encounter (London, Ithaca Press, 1973); E. Said, Orientalism (New York, Pantheon, 1978); M. Rowlands, ‘A question of complexity’, in D. Miller, M. Rowlands and C. Tilley, eds, Domination and resistance (London, Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp. 29-40; M. Rowlands, ‘The politics of identity in archaeology’, in G. Bond and A. Gilliam, eds, Social construction of the past: representation as power (London, Routledge, 1994), pp. 129-43; M. Bernal, ‘The image of ancient Greece as a tool for colonialism and European hegemony’, in Bond and Gilliam, Social construction, pp. 119-28.
9. E.g. Jackson and Ives, The world observed; D. Kulick and M. Willson, eds, Taboo: sex, identity and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork (London, Routledge, 1995); Clifford and Marcus, Writing culture; R. Lawless, V. Sutlive and M. Zamora, eds, Fieldwork: the human experience (New York, Gordon & Breach, 1983); Robbins and Bamford, Fieldwork revisited.
10. Of course, no representations are ‘innocent’ in their selection of style, form or content, and each discipline has a distinctive mix of genres, perhaps widest in such subjects as geography, anthropology and archaeology which span the arts/sciences divide. Nonetheless, archaeology can be argued to have been extremely conservative in its textual and other strategies and analyses: see M. Pluciennik, ‘Archaeological narratives: and other ways of telling’, Current Anthropology 40 (1999, in press). This paper attempts to at least open up to debate issues of the politics and poetics of writing fieldwork, beyond the simple, often quantitative textual analyses which have typified some archaeological commentary, such as the discussion of megaliths in C. Tilley, Metaphor and material culture (Oxford, Blackwell, 1999), pp. 82-101; J. Thomas, ‘Discourse, totalization and “the neolithic” ‘, in C. Tilley, ed., Interpretative archaeology (Providence, RI, Berg, 1993), pp. 357-94.
11. E.g. B. Trigger, ‘Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist’, Man 19 (1984), pp. 355-70; D. Fowler, ‘Uses of the past: archaeology in the service of the state’, American Antiquity 52 (1987), pp. 229-48; R. Layton, ed., Conflict in the archaeology of living traditions (London, Unwin Hyman, 1989); Y. Hamilakis, ‘Through the looking glass: nationalism, archaeology and the politics of identity’, Antiquity 70 (1996), pp. 975-8; P. Gathercole and D. Lowenthal, eds, The politics of the past (London, Unwin Hyman, 1990).
12. For recent reviews and references see e.g. D. Jones and R. Harris, ‘Archaeological human remains: scientific, cultural, and ethical considerations’, Current Anthropology 39 (1998), pp. 253-64; S. Powell, C. Garza and A. Hendricks, ‘Ethics and ownership of the past: the reburial and repatriation controversy’, Archaeological Method and Theory 5 (1993), pp. 1-42.
13. E.g. M. Lynott and A. Wylie, eds, Ethics in American archaeology: challenges for the 1990s (Washington, DC, Society for American Archaeology, 1995); J. Mulvaney, ‘Past regained, future lost: the Kow Swamp Pleistocene burials’, Antiquity 65 (1991), pp. 12-21; Jones and Harris, ‘Archaeological human remains’.
14. J. Sidaway, ‘In other worlds: on the politics of research by “First World” geographers in the “Third World” ‘, Area 24 (1992), pp. 403-8; H. Nast, ‘Opening remarks on “Women in the field” ‘, Professional Geographer 46 (1994), pp. 54-66; L. Staeheli and V. Lawson, ‘A discussion of ‘Women in the field'’: the politics of feminist fieldwork’, Professional Geographer 46 (1994), pp. 96-102.
15. E.g. I. Hodder, ‘Writing archaeology: site reports in context’, Antiquity 63 (1989), pp. 268-74; C. Tilley, ‘Excavation as theatre’, Antiquity 63 (1989), pp. 275-80; B. Bender, S. Hamilton and C. Tilley, ‘Leskernick: stone worlds; alternative narratives; nested landscapes’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63 (1998), pp. 147-78; but see P. Healy, ‘Archaeology abroad: ethical considerations of fieldwork in foreign countries’, in E. Green, ed., Ethics and values in archaeology (New York, Free Press, 1984), pp. 123-32.
16. E.g. J. Gero, ‘Sociopolitics and the woman-at-home ideology’, American Antiquity 58 (1985), pp. 25-32; J. Gero, ‘Gender division of labour in the construction of archaeological knowledge in the United States’, in G. Bond and A. Gilliam, eds, Social construction of the past (London, Routledge, 1994), pp. 144-53; J. Gero, ‘Archaeological practice and gendered encounters with field data’, in R. Wright, ed., Gender and archaeology (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 251-79;
17. M. Conkey and J. Gero, ‘Tensions, pluralities, and engendering archaeology: an introduction to women and prehistory’, in J. Gero and M. Conkey, eds, Engendering archaeology (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 3-30; M. Conkey and J. Gero, ‘Programme to practice: gender and feminism in archaeology’, Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997), pp. 411-37; A. Wylie, ‘The interplay of evidential constraints and political interests: recent archaeological research on gender’, American Antiquity 57 (1992), pp. 15-35; A. Wylie, ‘Good science, bad science, or science as usual? Feminist critiques of science’, in L. Hager, ed., Women in human evolution (London, Routledge, 1997), pp. 29-55.
18. H. Kuklick, ‘After Ishmael: the fieldwork tradition and its future’, in Gupta and Ferguson, Anthropological locations, pp. 47-65, in her historical overview of the origins of anthropological fieldwork, Kuklick notes that ‘the association of fieldwork with manly heroism that became conventional during the nineteenth century has persisted in all sciences of the field’ (p. 63). However, the prevalence and persistence of physical machismo, for example, on archaeological excavations remains unexamined, though Gero, ‘Archaeological practice’, argues that gendered valorizations are present in the most basic of archaeological practices. G. Rose, Feminism and geography: the limits of geographical knowledge (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1993), pp. 68-73, 104-9, offers a more complex view of the specifically geographical forms of masculinist epistemologies in relation to fieldwork and landscape.
19. I. Hodder, ‘ “Always momentary, fluid and flexible”: towards a reflexive excavation methodology’, Antiquity 71 (1997), pp. 691-700; but see I. Hodder, ‘A response to Yannis Hamilakis’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 12 (1999), pp. 83-5.
20. There are, inevitably, other networks of personal and academic connections here too. I first heard of the possibility of working in Albania while staying at the British School at Rome (BSR). The then director, Richard Hodges, told me one evening that he was attempting to set up a project investigating particularly the later history (late antique and early Byzantine) of the ancient city of Butrint. Richard made it clear that, although there were research imperatives, he also saw this as an opportunity to produce economic benefits for the immediate area through the development of cultural tourism. This should also enable the project to raise large amounts of funds from aid or development budgets. Some time later I was invited, through John Moreland, to join a team visiting Albania in the late summer of 1994 to investigate the archaeological potential of the area for associated field survey work. I had first met Richard Hodges while I was an undergraduate at Sheffield, where he was John Moreland's PhD supervisor. John, an early medieval archaeologist, was subsequently appointed a lecturer at Sheffield archaeology department, where we later became friends and colleagues, collaborating on John's excavation project in central Italy. I also knew many others involved in the Butrint project through visits to the BSR and to Richard's excavations in Italy during my own PhD research.
21. Human Rights Watch, Statement of concern: violations in the Albanian elections (Helsinki, Human Rights Watch, 1996).
22. Z. Andrea, ‘Archaeology in Albania, 1973-83’, Archaeological Reports 30 (1983-84), pp. 102-19. This emphasis on ethnogenesis is typical of much Eastern European archaeology, both mainstream and that associated with the wilder fringes of ethnonationalist myth-making: see D. Austin, ‘The “proper study” of medieval archaeology’, in D. Austin and L. Alcock, eds, From the Baltic to the Black Sea (London, Routledge, 1990), pp. 9-42; P. Dolukhanov, ‘Archaeology and nationalism in totalitarian and post-totalitarian Russia’, in J. Atkinson, I. Banks and J. O'Sullivan, eds, Nationalism and archaeology (Glasgow, Cruithne Press, 1996); V. Shnirelman, ‘Alternative prehistory’, Journal of European Archaeology 3 (1995), pp. 1-20. In Albania the theme of ethnic continuity from the Bronze Age to modern Albania identity was also expressed in numerous conferences dedicated to Illyrian studies and in popular archaeology books. The extent of state control over archaeological agendas is confirmed by interviews with archaeologists quoted in E. Morina, Albanian archaeology after the First World War: ideology, politics, and national identity (dissertation, Institute of Archaeology, University College London).
23. F. Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (New York, Free Press, 1992), who equated this state of affairs with the ‘victory’ of liberal capitalism.
24. E.g. S. Shennan, ed., Archaeological approaches to cultural identity (London, Unwin Hyman, 1989); P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones and C. Gamble, eds, Cultural identity and archaeology (London, Routledge, 1996); S. Jones, The archaeology of ethnicity (London, Routledge, 1997).
25. Recounted by Dionysis Flevotomos, a member of the survey team who carried out interviews in conjunction with investigations into the use of the hill of Kalivho, near Butrint, traditionally used for winter pasture. For accounts of Koutsovlach and other mobile pastoralists of the region, see e.g. A. Wace and M. Thompson, The nomads of the Balkans: an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of northern Pindus (London, Methuen, 1914); C. Chang, ‘Pastoral transhumance in the southern Balkans as a social ideology: ethnoarchaeological research in northern Greece’, American Anthropologist 95 (1993), pp. 687-703.
26. J. Urry, The tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies (London, Sage, 1990).
27. For similar experiences in an even more worrying political context, see M. Wagner, ‘Both sides of the border: the impact of the political milieu on field research in Burundi and Tanzania’, in C. Keyes Adenaike and J. Vansina, eds, In pursuit of history: fieldwork in Africa (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 1996), pp. 18-28.
28. It should be emphasized that, of course, there were and are hierarchies and differential networks of access and communication, not only within various teams, but also within the project as a whole.
29. Cf. D. Patai, ‘U.S. Academics and Third World women: is ethical research possible?’, in S. Gluck and D. Patai, eds, Women's words: the feminist practice of oral history (New York, Routledge, 1991), p. 139. See also Punch, Politics and ethics, for an excellent description of the dilemmas which arose when authorities connected with his department and his researched institution (a public school) wanted control over the nature of the resultant publications. For a sociological example of the clash of the normally separated fields of academia, the law, research fieldwork and government agencies, see M. Brajuha and L. Hallowell, ‘Legal intrusion and the politics of fieldwork: the impact of the Brajuha case’, Urban Life 14 (1986), pp. 454-78.
30. Gupta and Ferguson, ‘Discipline’, p. 11.
31. Staeheli and Lawson, ‘A discussion’, p. 98.
32. UNESCO, Report of the 21st session of the World Heritage Committee, http://www.unesco. org/whc/sites/570.htm (1998).
33. Cf. J. Chapman, ‘Destruction of a common heritage: the archaeology of war in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina’, Antiquity 68 (1994), pp. 120-6, on wartime destruction in the FYR. In fact, a recent visit (April 1999) proved that survey material had been disturbed but not destroyed, though more intrinsically valuable, ‘small finds’, including coins from excavations, had disappeared, along with material from the museum.
34. J. Clifford, ‘Prologue: in medias res’, in Routes: travel and translation in the later twentieth century (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 8.
35. J. Sidaway, ‘In other worlds: on the politics of research by “First World” geographers in the “Third World” ‘, Area 24 (1992), p. 404.
36. Wagner, ‘Burundi and Tanzania’, p. 20.
37. E.g. G. Marcus and D. Cushman, ‘Ethnographies as texts’, Annual Review of Anthropology 11 (1982), pp. 25-69; Clifford and Marcus, Writing culture; S. Webster, ‘Realism and reification in the ethnographic genre’, Critique of Anthropology 6 (1986), pp. 39-62; M. Strathern, ‘Out of context: the persuasive fictions of anthropology’, Current Anthropology 28 (1987), pp. 251-81.
38. Staeheli and Lawson, ‘A discussion’, p. 97. See also F. Harrison, ed., Decolonizing anthropology: moving further toward an anthropology of liberation, 2nd edn (Arlington, VA, Association of Black Anthropologists/American Anthropological Association, 1997), for Marxist-influenced emancipatory calls for political action and engagement within and through anthropology as a means of combating racism and other forms of oppression.
39. See e.g. Layton, Conflict; Gathercole and Lowenthal, Politics of the past.
40. J. Bintliff, ‘A siege mentality at Lampeter? Let Ludwig in - he's a friend’, Archaeological Dialogues 5 (1998), p. 41.
41. In ethnography too, the objectification of informants and the observed raises ethical and representational issues (see Rabinow, Reflections, for an early articulation of this problem). However, informants are always directly relevant to ethnographic concerns and centrally involved in personal relationships with the observer, in contrast to almost all archaeological work.
42. Clifford, ‘Prologue’.
43. In the sense used by P. Bourdieu, Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste, trans. R. Nice (London, Routledge, 1984), p. 291. For an earlier equation of ethnographers with tourists, see M. Crick, ‘ “Tracing” the anthropological self: quizzical reflections on field work, tourism, and the ludic’, Social Analysis 17 (1985), pp. 71-92. ‘Tourists are temporary residents in another culture. They normally are more affluent than those among whom they stay. Access to the other culture is very limited; their interests are fairly specific. When abroad, tourists are awkward and always marginal. Their identities lie in the home culture and interests derive from that culture, not from the one being visited. They return home and recount tales about their encounters… This brief description summarizes salient features of the tourist experience, but everything here also applies in some measure to the anthropologist’ (pp. 78-9).
44. Urry, Tourist gaze.
45. ‘There is no other international trading activity which involves such critical interplay among economic, political, environmental, and social elements as tourism’: J. Lea, Tourism and development in the third world (London, Routledge, 1988), p. 2.
46. There has also been extensive criticism of the role and effects of the World Bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund. For a damning indictment of its elitism, alleged corruption and promotion of policies which maintain structural inequalities, see former IMF economist D. Budhoo, Enough is enough: Dear Mr. Camdessus… an open letter of resignation to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (New York, New Horizons, 1990).
47. E.g. H. Fourmile, ‘Who owns the past? Aborigines as captives of the archives’, Aboriginal History 13 (1989), pp. 1-8; J. Riding, ‘Without ethics and morality: a historical overview of imperial archaeology and American Indians’, Arizona State Law Journal 24 (1992), pp. 11-34; L. Zimmerman, ‘Made radical by my own: an archaeologist learns to accept reburial’, in Layton, Conflict, pp. 60-7; J. Erlandson, C. King, L. Robles, R. Ruyle, D. Wilson, R. Winthrop, C. Wood, B. Haley and L. Wilcoxon, ‘The making of Chumash tradition,’ Current Anthropology 39 (1998), pp. 477-510.
48. For recent philosophically grounded reviews of the field of development ethics, see D. Crocker, ‘Towards development ethics’, World Development 19 (1991), pp. 457-83; D. Gasper, ‘Culture and development ethics: needs, human rights, and western theories’, Development and Change 27 (1996), pp. 627-61; and M. Raiser, ‘Destruction, diversity, dialogue: notes on the ethics of development’, Journal of International Development 9 (1997), pp. 39-57. The ethics of tourism development are discussed in J. Lea, ‘Tourism development ethics in the third world’, Annals of Tourism Research 20 (1993), pp. 701-15, and ethics and the environment in the context of economic development and business are considered by J. Singh and E. Carasco, ‘Business ethics, economic development and protection of the environment in the New World Order’, Journal of Business Ethics 5 (1996), pp. 297-307.
49. Cf. Gupta and Ferguson, ‘Discipline’, p. 13, for ethnographic ‘fields’: ‘The image of arriving in “another world” whose difference is enacted in the descriptions that follow, tends to minimize, if not make invisible, the multiple ways in which colonialism, imperialism, missionization, multinational capital, global cultural flows, and travel bind these spaces together.’
50. D. Haraway, ‘Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspectives’, Feminist Studies 14 (1988), pp. 575-99.