Ethical implications of salvage archaeology and dam building: The clash between archaeologists and local people in Dar al-Manasir, Sudan

Abstract

The controversial Merowe Dam was inaugurated by the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, in March 2009. The reservoir of the dam had then already flooded a large stretch of the fertile Nile valley, which required the forced resettlement of up to 78,000 people. During the construction period of the dam, foreign archaeologists were surveying and excavating in order to save the cultural heritage of the land to be flooded. This article addresses the ethical implications of conducting salvage archaeology when the local people are in opposition to the development project that necessitates both their resettlement and the archaeological salvage.

The Genocide-Ecocide Nexus in Sudan: Violent “Development” and the Racial-Spatial Dynamics of (Neo)Colonial-Capitalist Extraction

“…Their world has been drowned, and the past has been wiped out." 117 Government officials have declared people from these communities "backward." 118 It has even been claimed the Dam Program offers opportunities for communities to evolve from "stone age conditions to modern accommodation."…”

Heritage bureaucracies and the modern nation state. Towards an ethnography of archaeological systems of government

“…As Putin's attempt to strategically tap into the full potential of the global energy market as been accompanied by a building boom, archaeological research has increased significantly (Engovatova 2010; 2012). Although many researchers involved in this project have the best intentions, inevitably, as suggested by different scholars working on the nexus of salvage archaeology and dam building (Hafsaas-Tsakos 2011; Schoup 2006), through participating in large and highly contested development projects archaeologists reinforce existing inequalities while legitimizing particular sociopolitical agendas (Hafsaas-Tsakos 2011, 69–70). In the Altai Republic, for example, archaeologists have become entangled with Gazprom's highly controversial Altai pipeline project (Plets et al 2011; Plets 2016).…”

Should I stay or should I go? Ideals and realities of archaeology in the conflict regions

“…Archaeological excavations have been ongoing for over 15 years in a region affected by dam construction (see Figure 1 for the map), with many archaeologists and specialists, mainly from Turkey, but also Italy and the UK. Taking part in rescue excavations in these contested and conflict areas have brought to light many ethical issues as part of wider paradigm of archaeology and heritage studies (Meskell and Pels 2005;Shoup 2006;Hafsaas-Tsakos 2011). In this paper, as an archaeologist and a heritage specialist, we examine several ethical questions: Figure 1.…”