A Precarious Future: Reflections from a Survey of Early Career Researchers in Archaeology

Brami, Maxime; Emra, Stephanie; Muller, Antoine; Preda-Bălănică, Bianca; Irvine, Benjamin; Milić, Bogdana; Malagó, Aldo; Meheux, Katie; Fernández-Götz, Manuel

doi:10.1017/eaa.2022.41

Cited by 10 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Archaeology in 2022 exists within a context of struggles for unionization throughout the discipline; strikes among academics of all rank, from graduate students to professors; poor experiences of early career researchers (Brami et al., 2023); unmet museum‐worker needs (cf. Raicovich, 2021, 154–68); and lack of support and long‐term career stability among cultural resource management technicians while their industry continues to grow (Äikäs et al., 2023; Altschul and Klein, 2022; Black Trowel Collective, 2021d).…”

Section: Toward a Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeology in 2022: Counter‐myths for hopeful futures

Berihuete‐Azorín,

Blackmore,

Borck

et al. 2023

American Anthropologist

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Archaeology in 2022 features more calls than ever for a socially and politically engaged, progressive discipline. Archaeologists increasingly respect and integrate decolonizing and Indigenous knowledge in theory and practice. They acknowledge and embrace the fluidity and diversity of sexes and genders, past and present. They document patterns of migration, ancient as well as contemporary, to combat retrograde and racist narratives that remain pervasive in the public sphere. At the same time, the field has a deep‐seated conservative bastion toward which many scholars retreat, arguing for an “objective” past that is free of political implications or interpretive ambiguity. As anarchist archaeologists, we see the myth of the objective past as one of many interconnected myths that have provided the basis for an archaeology that reifies and proliferates the current social order. We deconstruct myths relating to capitalist and colonialist ideologies of “human nature,” the assumed inevitability of the current order, and fatalistic commitment to dystopian or utopian futures. As alternatives, we present counter‐myths that emphasize the contingent and political nature of archaeological praxis, the creative and collaborative foundation of communities, the alternative orders that archaeology uncovers, and the role of a hopeful past for constructing the possibilities of different futures.

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Section: Toward a Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeology in 2022: Counter‐myths for hopeful futures

Berihuete‐Azorín,

Blackmore,

Borck

et al. 2023

American Anthropologist

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show abstract

“…In addition to its intellectual contributions, the analysis of published material also helps mitigate practical challenges currently faced by many archaeologists working in Africa and elsewhere. For example, a lack of funding for new projects and increasingly unstable academic employment (Brami et al 2023;Cramb et al 2022)-impacting lab access and paid research time-for many early career researchers can make it difficult to obtain, analyze, and publish new archaeological datasets. By maximizing datasets that are already available, studies like this one offer a feasible way to contribute new and important archaeological findings without necessarily relying on external support.…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunting and the Social Lives of Southern Africa’s First Farmers

Jones,

Kapumha,

Chirikure

et al. 2023

J Archaeol Res

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Perspectives on human–animal relationships are changing in archaeology and related disciplines. Analytical models that distinguish foraging from food production remain popular, but scholars are beginning to recognize greater variability in the ways people understood and engaged with animals in the past. In southern Africa, researchers have observed that wild animals were economically and socially important to recent agropastoral societies. However, archaeological models emphasize cattle keeping and downplay the role of hunting among past farming groups. To address this discrepancy and investigate human–wild animal interactions over the last ~ 2000 years, we examined zooarchaeological data from 54 southern African Iron Age (first and second millennium AD) farming sites. Diversity and taxonomic information highlights how often and what types of animals people hunted. Comparisons with earlier and contemporaneous forager and herder sites in southern and eastern Africa show that hunting for social and economic purposes characterized the spread of farming and rise of complex societies in southern Africa. The long-term cultural integration of wild animals into food-producing societies is unusual from a Global South perspective and warrants reappraisal of forager/farmer dichotomies in non-Western contexts.

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Archaeology as Social Engagement

Carman

2024

Archaeological Practice as Politics and Ethics

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A Precarious Future: Reflections from a Survey of Early Career Researchers in Archaeology

Cited by 10 publications

References 57 publications

Archaeology in 2022: Counter‐myths for hopeful futures

Archaeology in 2022: Counter‐myths for hopeful futures

Hunting and the Social Lives of Southern Africa’s First Farmers

Archaeology as Social Engagement

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