Archaeologies of the Contemporary World
- 23 October 2017
- journal article
- Published by Annual Reviews in Annual Review of Anthropology
- Vol. 46 (1), 203-221
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041401
Abstract
Archaeologists have long been interested in contemporary material culture, but only recently has a dedicated subfield of archaeology of the contemporary world begun to emerge. Although it is concerned mainly with the archaeology of the early to mid-twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in its explicit acknowledgment of the contemporary archaeological record as multi-temporal, the subfield is not defined by a focus on a specific time period so much as a particular disposition toward time, material things, the archaeological process, and its politics. This article considers how the subfield might be characterized by its approaches to particular sources and its current and emerging thematic foci. A significant point of debate concerns the role of archaeology as a discipline through which to explore ongoing, contemporary sociomaterial practices—is archaeology purely concerned with the abandoned and the ruined, or can it also provide a means by which to engage with and illuminate ongoing, contemporary, and future sociomaterial practices?Keywords
This publication has 101 references indexed in Scilit:
- Forgetting to remember, remembering to forget: late modern heritage practices, sustainability and the ‘crisis’ of accumulation of the pastInternational Journal of Heritage Studies, 2013
- Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritageJournal of Social Archaeology, 2013
- Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the MaterialNorwegian Archaeological Review, 2012
- Peace maintenance and political messages: The significance of walls during and after the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’Journal of Social Archaeology, 2011
- Clockpunk Anthropology and the Ruins of ModernityCurrent Anthropology, 2010
- Time and the archaeological archiveRethinking History, 2010
- Transit, Transition: Excavating J641 VUJCambridge Archaeological Journal, 2009
- Ethics and Ethical Critique in the Archaeology of Modern ConflictNorwegian Archaeological Review, 2008
- Vision, Media, Noise and the Percolation of TimeJournal of Material Culture, 2006
- The past of the present. Archaeological memory and timeArchaeological Dialogues, 2004