Suchergebnisse

The discovery of a rock art site in 2008 by an amateur archaeologist spurred a wave of public interest in archaeology in Maragatería, Spain. As new discoveries took place, alternative archaeological discourses thrived facing the inaction of institutional and academic archaeologists. A long-term study of Maragatería carried out by the author serves to explore the construction of archaeological epistemic authority in a context where various social actors compete for dominance. Gieryn's notion of 'boundary-work' serves to analyse the different strategies employed by academic and institutional archaeologists, amateurs and pseudoarchaeologists to build epistemic authority. This article draws on Latour's affirmation that the legitimisation of scientific objectivity should rely on 'trust' rather than on 'certainty'. Ethnographic research showed that the more archaeologists attempted to legitimise their authority by reclaiming certainty, the more pseudoarchaeology proliferated. In contrast, the work of amateurs restrained the growth of pseudoarchaeology by creating networks of trust.

This article carries out a long-term exploration of the changing forms of organizing commemorative space in postcolonial Cuba. From a non-representational and processual approach, it argues that there is a close connection between different ideologies, and the social and material organization of commemoration. Because commemorative spaces are socially constituted and embedded in power relations, this study addresses the shifting forms of connecting the subjective and objective sides of memory, that is, how commemoration organizes the relation between people and the materiality of commemorative artefacts. During both the capitalist-republican and communist-revolutionary periods, commemorative spaces were constructed and reworked to renew political hegemony under different premises. These transformations are examined through three conceptual metaphors—text, arena and performance—and three organizing practices—enchantment, emplacement and enactment. The focus is placed on one of the main Cuban commemorational spaces: the Civic Square or Square of the Revolution of Havana.

The transition towards a cognitive and post-industrial economy has led to the emergence of new strategies of capture of the immanent productive capacities of the social forces. Heritage entities are subject to, and also participate in, processes by which common creativity and knowledge are being harnessed by novel forms of rent and control. The objective of this paper was to show that conceiving heritage as a common situated in specific contexts rather than as a universal essence can open up novel epistemological spheres of communication between different knowledge practices. Also, it can help bridge some ontological gaps among the various stakeholders in the arena of heritage, such as academics, managers, architects, local communities and market forces. This entails considering heritage as an emergent material and immaterial construction process involving many different agents. Currently, these processes tend towards the privatization of common values and the shattering of local communities. Normally, this situation entails a fundamental alienation between objects and subjects, and the reification of heritage. This paper suggests that considering heritage as a common could provide a different perspective to tackle this crucial problem. Accordingly, scholars should not only be bound to a critical discursive stance, but should also commit to 'ontological politics' that would situate them as mediators between the global hierarchies of value generated by heritage and the common productive potential of local communities. ; Peer reviewed

La aplicación de la filosofía de Gilles Deleuze en el ámbito arqueológico permite superar la dicotomía entre procesualismo y posprocesualismo, abriendo la puerta a un pensamiento diferente. Su teoría facilita la recepción de las ideas de las diferentes teorías de la complejidad, gracias a su carácter realista y a la priorización de la ontología sobre la epistemología. Este movimiento nos permite superar el giro simétrico y las distintas oposiciones binarias que subyacen al pensamiento arqueológico, como estructura-proceso, sujeto-objeto, verdad-valor o identidad-diferencia. A la vez, intentamos replantear algunas esferas de la disciplina arqueológica a través de una crítica de su conformación interna y externa, con lo que intentamos abrir el espectro de interpretaciones arqueológicas posibles. Abstract The paper suggests that the politically informed complex philosophy of Gilles Deleuze can enable archaeologists to overcome the dichotomy between processualism and postprocessualism, opening the door to different kinds of archaeological thinking. His philosophy facilitates the reception and translation into the social sciences of the ideas coming from complexity theory, thanks to his realist stance and his prioritization of ontological over epistemological concerns. This move allows us to overcome the 'symmetric turn' and the different dichotomies underlying current archaeological thought, such as structure-process, subject-object, identity-difference, truth-value, or self-other. Finally, the paper rethinks some areas of archaeological theory through a critique of the internal and external conformation of the discipline, aiming at opening the spectrum of available interpretative frameworks. ; Peer reviewed

La aplicación de la filosofía de Gilles Deleuze en el ámbito arqueológico permite superar la dicotomía entre procesualismo y posprocesualismo, abriendo la puerta a un pensamiento diferente. Su teoría facilita la recepción de las ideas de las diferentes teorías de la complejidad, gracias a su carácter realista y a la priorización de la ontología sobre la epistemología. Este movimiento nos permite superar el giro simétrico y las distintas oposiciones binarias que subyacen al pensamiento arqueológico, como estructura-proceso, sujeto-objeto, verdad-valor o identidad-diferencia. A la vez, intentamos replantear algunas esferas de la disciplina arqueológica a través de una crítica de su conformación interna y externa, con lo que intentamos abrir el espectro de interpretaciones arqueológicas posibles. ; The paper suggests that the politically informed complex philosophy of Gilles Deleuze can enable archaeologists to overcome the dichotomy between processualism and postprocessualism, opening the door to different kinds of archaeological thinking. His philosophy facilitates the reception and translation into the social sciences of the ideas coming from complexity theory, thanks to his realist stance and his prioritization of ontological over epistemological concerns. This move allows us to overcome the 'symmetric turn' and the different dichotomies underlying current archaeological thought, such as structure-process, subject-object, identity-difference, truth-value, or self-other. Finally, the paper rethinks some areas of archaeological theory through a critique of the internal and external conformation of the discipline, aiming at opening the spectrum of available interpretative frameworks.

This book shows that understanding Cuba's past and heritage is fundamental to shed light upon its future trajectories. It examines the role that cultural heritage played in the construction of a sense of national identity in post-colonial Cuba, from the Cuban independence from Spain in 1898 up until Cuban-American rapprochement in 2014. The book illustrates how political and ideological shifts have influenced ideas about heritage and how, in turn, heritage has been utilized by different social actors and classes in the reproduction of their status, the spread of new ideologies, and the consolidation of political regimes

The authors examine the implications of both a recent international ruling at The Hague curtailing fishing rights and the encroaching Colombian-based tourist industry for Raizals – descendants of African slaves brought by the British to the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina in the Caribbean Sea. There they developed an autonomous way of life, in a subsistence economy based on fishing after the British abandoned the islands. While nominally under the control of the Spanish empire and afterwards the Colombian state, Raizals differ in many ways from the dominant Spanish-speaking, Creole and Catholic mainland population – being English-speaking, Afro and Protestant. Until the mid-twentieth century, they enjoyed substantial autonomy, now undermined by the Colombian nation-building project and a judgment of the international court at The Hague giving nearby Nicaragua rights over the waters of the Colombian islands, consequently precluding Raizals from accessing their traditional fishing resources. As a result, the islanders, with their culture recast as 'heritage', have become proletarians subordinated to tourist industries owned by mainland Colombians.