Futurity, Time, and Archaeology

Abstract

There continues to be much archaeological discussion concerning temporality and the complex relationship between the past and present, but less attention is paid to how the future figures into archaeological thought, method, and interpretation. This introductory essay provides the theoretical framework for an archaeological consideration of futurity, an approach that takes seriously the expectations and imaginations of people in the past while also recognizing the urgency of our present here-and-now. An archaeology of critical futurities opens the discipline to potentialities of action, to imagine worlds otherwise in the past and to strive for change in the future. By broadening archaeological approaches to time to include futures, authors in this collection demonstrate the global potential for an archaeology poised for action in addition to exploring how the future is a critical component of understanding the past and present.

Caring labor and the affective economy in the making of the Caribbean

“…Indeed, Harris (2021, 233–34) sees one of the jobs of archaeology to actualize virtual pasts in the present, a politics of knowledge that cultivates alternative understandings of the world. A shared commitment to opening up narrow conceptions of history can be seen across anthropology and archaeology in exploration of futures, the virtual, and various speculative positions (Blaser, 2014; Crellin et al., 2021; Escobar, 2020; Harris, 2021; Montgomery and Supernant, 2022; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011; Reilly, 2019; Richard, 2019; Rizvi, 2019; Salazar et al., 2017; Scott, 2014). An interest in past care and anticipated futures shifts the relations between ourselves and the subjects of our inquiries, not changing the “facts on the ground” but changing the way we observe and present things (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011), in this case to more emancipatory and inclusive archaeologies.…”

“…We can research care as a force produced through assemblages, from the particular attachments of labors, things, and bodies, and how those assemblages anticipated other possible worlds. What is also at stake here is whether it is only certain actual pasts that matter or a myriad of potential futures that reveal ontologically different positions and horizons of expectation, regardless of their actualization (Reilly, 2019). As a science that extends the reach of historical narratives, archaeology is implicated in the ways we generate knowledge.…”

Confronting the Present: Archaeology in 2019

“…Knowledge of diverse social lifeways in the past not only calls the status quo into question but also stimulates alternative courses of action conducive to social change (Harrison 2016). An archaeology of futurity documents histories of futures pursued, both realized and failed, and translates those futures‐past into “inspiration for archaeological praxis, or those action‐oriented approaches to archaeology that can be transformative, politically engaged, and aspirational” (Reilly 2019, 3). Or, to paraphrase G. K. Chesterton (1910, 44), archaeologies of futurity recover lost causes that might end up saving the world.…”

Towards a Prosthetic Archaeology

“…This approach brings archaeology a critical, future-oriented perspective (cf. Reilly, 2019), where prosthesis becomes a way to open up our archaeological imagination (Shanks, 2012) and envision the future pasts.…”