Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology (Archaeology In Society) [Paperback]

Ian J. McNiven (Author), Lynette Russell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0759109079 | ISBN-13: 978-0759109070 | Publication Date: September 8, 2005

: Archaeology has been complicit in the appropriation of indigenous peoples' pasts worldwide. While tales of blatant archaeological colonialism abound from the era of empire, the process also took more subtle and insidious forms. Ian McNiven and Lynette Russell outline archaeology's "colonial culture" and how it has shaped archaeological practice over the past century. Using examples from their native Australia-- and comparative material from North America, Africa, and elsewhere-- the authors show how colonized peoples were objectified by research, had their needs subordinated to those of science, were disassociated from their accomplishments by theories of diffusion, watched their histories reshaped by western concepts of social evolution, and had their cultures appropriated toward nationalist ends. The authors conclude by offering a decolonized archaeological practice through collaborative partnership with native peoples in understanding their past.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The authors have given solid support to their goal of producing a manuscript that calls attention not only to the ways that archaeology has been used to subordinate, objectify, and appropriate the heritage and past of indigenous populations in Australia but they have found the means of supporting that goal through lucid writing and documentation. The text will be a useful tool to social scientists studying the issues inherent in Indigenous studies and reflexive examinations of archaeology as a political enterprise, as well as to those archaeologists in North America or in Australia struggling with the idea of a shared stewardship. As such, I see the volume as being a major textbook within classes examining Indigenous Archaeology and Critical Archaeology courses of study. (Watkins, Joe )

A good read, informative and thought-provoking. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries. (Choice )

The authors effectively utilize Australian archaeology and its relationship with indigenous people in order to present their argument, but with themes directed at wider audiences with varying interests, including archaeologists and anthropologists, historians and social scientists. (Museum Anthropology )

For the historian wanting to learn about the history of a highly relevant discipline, Appropriated Pasts is a very good starting point. In exposing the national impacts of archaeology's history, we come face to face with many of the lingering cultural assumptions that inform our visual and textual reference languages. This book presents numerous profound insights into a scientific practice that has shaped our views of Aboriginal peoples. (Ann McGrath Australian Historical Studies )

This voume is well suited as a textbook in archaeology, Native Studies, and other disciplines. It will clearly be read and widely cited for years to come on several continents. (Canadian Journal Of Archaeology )

I found this book enjoyable and stimulating. It is a thoughtful summation of the sins of our archaeological ancestors. (2007 Aboriginal History )

The book contains an important mapping of 'western' thoughts that influenced certain archaeologies and some fascinating case studies that help especially outsiders better understand Australia's many pasts. (South African Archaeological Bulletin )

Incisive and thought-provoking. A volume that touches all facets of archaeology because of the seriousness of the issues it raises. (Smith, Claire )

About the Author

Ian J. McNiven is Senior Lecturer and co-director of the Programme for Australian Indigenous Archaeology within the School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University. Lynette Russell holds the Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press (September 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0759109079
• ISBN-13: 978-0759109070
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,911,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The difficulty of disentangling archaeology from colonialism, October 20, 2010

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This review is from: Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology (Archaeology In Society) (Paperback)

McNiven, Ian J. and Lynette Russell
2005 Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. Archaeology in Society. Altamira Press, New York.

McNiven and Russell's Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology is in some ways a by-now familiar review of the colonial origins of archaeological study and the social sciences in general (see also Chakrabarty 2000; Said 1978; Trigger 1989). What these authors provide that has perhaps been less explicit elsewhere is a chronological recounting of the colonialist "tropes" regarding indigenous inferiority stemming from the graduated "progressivism" of the classical period and leading to the subtle "appropriation" of modern, seemingly politically correct, academic thought (McNiven and Russell 2005:7-9). In arguing that indigenous history is "world history," for example, academics may, perhaps unwittingly, alienate native groups from their own heritage and perpetuate the colonial tradition of western expansionism (McNiven and Russell 2005:211-231). While these authors draw most heavily on their own experience with relations between archaeologists and native groups in Australia, the lessons they seek to convey are equally important for other "settler colonies" such as the United States and Canada (McNiven and Russell 2005:2-3).

One area in which these authors break new ground is in their insistence that this colonialism lives on in the often subtle but nonetheless negative connotations that nonwestern ontologies suffer at the hands of western academic thought. While many authors have moved toward the conclusion that a modern archaeology requires embracing indigenous perspectives as part of the process of producing a sound research design (e.g., Ferguson 1996 [cited in McNiven and Russell 2005:233]), McNiven and Russell take this argument further than many, and it is in so doing that they most threaten the archaeological and academic establishment. Rather than adopt indigenous counselors as "partners" in the academic process, McNiven and Russell insist that only by relinquishing the right over determination of research design to descendant populations can archaeologists hope to correct some of the errors of the field's past and forge a truly postcolonial archaeology.

In Appropriated Pasts, McNiven and Russell tread a very fine line between tolling a death knell for archaeology as we know it and promising a bright future for a postcolonial social science in which native groups are given more than passing lip service in the footnotes of reported research. These authors argue that it is the native groups that must drive our research to satisfy more than just western positivist tastes, and as archaeologists we must relinquish to them the means of doing so. In retelling the story of the digital enhancement of rock art at Mua Island that corroborated oral traditions about the death of Goba's father, these authors seek to provide an example of a success story regarding archaeology designed to satisfy indigenous research objectives (McNiven and Russell 2005:255). What archaeologists and others in the western academic tradition must ask themselves, perhaps wide awake very late at night, is whether we would appreciate the story of Goba and his father any less if the enhancement of the rock art had revealed another image.

Works Cited
Chakrabarty, Dipesh
2000 Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Ferguson, T. J.
1996 Native Americans and the Practice of Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 25:63-79.

McNiven, Ian J. and Lynette Russell
2005 Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. Archaeology in Society. Altamira Press, New York.

Said, Edward
1978 Orientalism. Pantheon Books, New York.

Trigger, Bruce G.
1989 A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge University Press, New York.