The place of archaeology in Late capitalism: the structure of violence in the disciplinary and post-disciplinary phases of archaeology

Abstract

The archaeological discipline tries to understand the past through its material remains. Regardless of differing definitions of knowledge, past and materiality, the discipline generally believes that something can be said about history according to the observation of things that emerged from the past. From this basic understanding of archaeology, we can move onto examining how the different terms used within the discipline relate to each other.The archaeological discipline codifies a series of interrelated transformations: from the past to the present, from facticity to discourse, from perception to writing, and from the other to me. This codification only allows for specific relationships between these terms. When other relationships that differ from those that are codified emerge, they are considered imperfect knowledge, or an illegitimate means of dealing with the archaeological.Prior to perceiving the facts, the discipline attributes to the world certain values regarding materiality, perception, time and the other. Hence, it is not really surprising to find those values in the world, which constrains territory for any subsequent ethical and political debate.