TAG 2017

Session Title Temporalities otherwise:

Archaeology, relational
ontologies and the Time of the
Other
Organiser(s) and affiliation(s): Francesco Orlandi Barbano
(Department of Archaeology, University
of Exeter) Silvia Truini (Institute of Arab
and Islamic Studies, University of
Exeter – Department of Humanities,
Archaeology, University of
Southampton. Arts and Humanities
Research Council of the United
Kingdom)
Email address of principal st500@exeter.ac.uk
organiser
Session Abstract (up to 300 words)
Archaeology as ‘undisciplined’ practice (Haber 2012; Hamilakis 2013)
emerged from the acknowledgement of its disciplinary entanglements
with the philosophical and epistemological tenets of Western modernity,
and necessarily also with its “darker side” that, as Mignolo (2011)
writes, is the irreducible colonial character of the knowledge it produces.
With the recent “ontological turn” in theory, archaeological materials
came forth as vibrant components of material-sensorial assemblages:
but is that enough to counteract the coloniality of (archaeological)
knowledge?

In this session, we wish to expand the conversation on decoloniality,

modernity, and archaeology from the realm of materiality to that of
time, focussing on the discipline’s many “others”: non-professional local
communities —beyond the boundaries of the political category of
“indigeneity”— but also the materials themselves. If “the self-
determination of the Other is the other-determination of the Self”
(Holbraad et al. 2014), we seek to explore the ways in which
archaeologists translate these self-determined temporalities into
archaeological knowledge, and how their practice is reshaped in the
doing. We hope to promote a dialogue between case-studies from
different regional contexts, where alternative voices emerge in the face
of dominant archival productions, exceeding their limits and shaping
creative ways of being in relation.

To this end, we invite contributions —papers, performances, films and

photography— around the following topics:

• The place and the role of archaeology —as praxis in fieldwork, but
also as discipline that retains archival power over the past and is part
and parcel of the work of statutory and intra-governmental agencies for
heritage conservation— in the production of time and temporalities;
• The practices of negotiation with the past of the Others and their
translation into academic knowledge;
• The legacies of colonialism/imperialism in the production of
archaeological knowledge and new avenues for the creation of
emancipatory, counter-modern and alter/native archives;
• Memory, materiality and multi-temporal encounters in and around
archaeological sites.

References:

Haber, A. (2012) “Un-Disciplining Archaeology”. Archaeologies: Journal

of the World Archaeological Congress, 8(1): 55-66.

Hamilakis, Y. (2013) Archaeology and the Senses. Human experience,

memory, and affect. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Holbraad, M., Pedersen, M. A., Viveiros de Castro, E. (2014) "The Politics

of Ontology: Anthropological Positions." Theorizing the Contemporary,
Cultural Anthropology website, January 13, 2014.
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/462-the-politics-of-ontology-
anthropological-positions

Mignolo, W. (2011) The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global

Futures, Decolonial Options. Duke University Press, Durham.

The paper proposal form can be found at

http://tag2017cardiff.org/submissions/

Contributions can be sent to st500@exeter.ac.uk and

fo224@exeter.ac.uk

We look forward to receiving your proposals.