The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Description

It has been clear for many years that the ways in which archaeology is practised have been a direct product of a particular set of social, cultural, and historical circumstances - archaeology is always carried out in the present. More recently, however, many have begun to consider how archaeological techniques might be used to reflect more directly on the contemporary world itself: how we might undertake archaeologies of, as well as in the present. This Handbook is the first comprehensive survey of an exciting and rapidly expanding sub-field and provides an authoritative overview of the newly emerging focus on the archaeology of the present and recent past. In addition to detailed archaeological case studies, it includes essays by scholars working on the relationships of different disciplines to the archaeology of the contemporary world, including anthropology, psychology, philosophy, historical geography, science and technology studies, communications and media, ethnoarchaeology, forensic archaeology, sociology, film, performance, and contemporary art. This volume seeks to explore the boundaries of an emerging sub-discipline, to develop a tool-kit of concepts and methods which are applicable to this new field, and to suggest important future trajectories for research. It makes a significant intervention by drawing together scholars working on a broad range of themes, approaches, methods, and case studies from diverse contexts in different parts of the world, which have not previously been considered collectively. Dedication Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors 1. Introduction • Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison, and Angela Piccini PART I: CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES 2. The Relationship between Ethnoarchaeology and Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past: A Historical Investigation • Kathryn Fewster 3. Forensic Archaeology • Natasha Powers and Lucy Sibun 4. Anthropological Approaches to Contemporary Material Worlds • Penny Harvey 5. The Place of Things in Contemporary History • Tim Cole 6. Canonical Affordances: The Psychology of Everyday Things • Alan Costall and Ann Richards 7. To the Things Themselves Again: Observations on What Things are and Why They Matter • James Gordon Finlayson 8. STS, Symmetry, Archaeology • Timothy Webmoor 9. Actor-Network-Theory Approaches to the Archaeology of Contemporary Architecture • Albena Yaneva 10. Global Media and Archaeologies of Network Technologies • Sean Cubitt 11. Performance and the Stratigraphy of Place: Everything You Need to Build a Town is Here • Wrights & Sites (Stephen Hodge, Simon Persighetti, Phil Smith, and Cathy Turner) PART II: RECURRENT THEMES 12. Time • Laurent Olivier 13. Absence • Severin Fowles and Kaet Heupel 14. Ruins • Gavin Lucas 15. Memory • Bjørnar Olsen 16. Authenticity • Paul Graves-Brown 17. Sectarianism • Laura McAtackney 18. Afterlives • Michael Brian Schiffer 19. Waste • Joshua Reno 20. Heritage • Rodney Harrison 21. Difference • Denis Byrne 22. Modernism • Alfredo González-Ruibal 23. Protest • Anna Badcock and Robert Johnston 24. Homelessness • Larry J. Zimmerman 25. Conflict • Gabriel Moshenska 26. Disaster • Richard A. Gould 27. Scale • Matt Edgeworth PART III: MOBILITIES, SPACE, PLACE 28. Aluminology: An Archaeology of Mobile Modernity • Mimi Sheller 29. The Archaeology of Space Exploration • Alice C. Gorman and Beth Laura O’leary 30. Contemporary Archaeology in the Postcolony: Disciplinary Entrapments, Subaltern Epistemologies • Nick Shepherd 31. Archaeologies of Automobility • Peter Merriman 32. Archaeology of Modern American Death: Grave Goods and Blithe Mementoes • Shannon Lee Dawdy 33. ‘A Dirtier Reality?’ Archaeological Methods and the Urban Project • John Schofield 34. Heritage and Modernism in New York • Laurie A. Wilk 35. Checkpoints as Gendered Spaces: An Autoarchaeology of War, Heritage, and the City • Uzma Z. Rizvi 36. Race and Prosaic Materiality: the Archaeology of Contemporary Urban Space and the Invisible Colour Line • Paul R. Mullins Photo Essay: Institutional Spaces • Peter Metelerkamp PART IV: MEDIA AND MUTABILITIES 37. Between the Lines: Drawing Archaeology • Helen Wickstead 38. Two Riots: the Importance of Civil Unrest in Contemporary Archaeology • James R. Dixon 39. The Materiality of Film • Liz Watkins 40. The Burning Man Festival and the Archaeology of Ephemeral and Temporary Gatherings • Carolyn L. White 41. Olympic City Screens: Media, Matter, and Making Place • Angela Piccini 42. Material Animals: An Archaeology of Contemporary Zoo Experiences • Cornelius Holtorf Photo Essay: On Salvage Photography • Caitlin Desilvey, with Photographs by Steven Bond and Caitlin Desilvey PART V: THINGS AND CONNECTIVITIES 43. Silicon Valley • Christine Finn 44. Building Thought into Things • David de Léon 45. Archaeologies of the Postindustrial Body • Sefryn Penrose 46. The Material Cellphone • Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller 47. The Contemporary Material Culture of the Cult of the Infant: Constructing Children as Desiring Subjects • Sarah May 48. VHS: A Posthumanist Aesthetics of Recording and Distribution • Jem Noble 49. Autoanthropology, Modernity, and Automobiles • Pierre Lemonnier Photo Essay: The Other Acropolises: Multi-Temporality and the Persistence of the Past • Yannis Hamilakis and Fotis Ifantidis Index