Public Archaeology and the us Culture Wars

Abstract

United States archaeologists often appear to function as part of society's progressive faction. Their interests and efforts stem from a nexus of social and economic elements regularly cursed in conservative circles. This article describes the implications of the wars in terms of public archaeology, especially public archaeological practice that intersects with public education in the United States. It explains the reasons that these culture wars are important in terms of formal education in the United States and discusses why archaeology is relevant to social studies as it is practised in the formal education sphere. The study also examines the negative attitudes that US archaeologists have about outreach to formal education in general, and describes some recent shifts within professional archaeology societies which indicate that some of these attitudes may be changing. Finally, it argues that archaeology's lack of engagement with education's needs has served to work against those promoting a more inclusive democracy.

Ethics and Archaeological Praxis

“…Practitioners started to analyze archaeology education as well as to practice it, and to articulate some of its benefi ts to the wider public (Bartoy 2012 ;Davis 2005 ;Brauer 2003 , 2008 ;Jeppson , 2012Zimmerman et al 1994 ). The current emphasis of much archaeology education is now aimed at using archaeology to: …help people to appreciate diversity in the past and present and thereby to practice living more tolerantly in a multicultural society…[and to help] students of any age learn teamwork, critical thinking, and a perspective on their own lives within the time and space of human life (Little 2012 :396).…”

“…Some of these archaeologists have proposed that societal change could be an important result of working with professional educators, in both the classroom (Jeppson 2004 ;Stone 2000 ) and in community service learning projects (Nassaney and Levine 2009 ). Others have sought ways for archaeology to be more democratic, or for this democracy, if achieved, to make society itself more open and democratic (Jeppson 2001(Jeppson , 2012McDavid 2002a ). Some have focused on specifi c social issues, such as racism and white privilege (Babiarz 2011 ;McDavid 2005 ), class struggle (Gadsby and Chidester 2012 ;, poverty (Matthews and Spencer-Wood 2011 ), environmental issues (Derry 2003 ), and cultural violence (Gonzalez-Tennant 2007 ; .…”

Community Archaeology and the US National Park Service: The Second Installment in a Continuing Series for the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage

“…Further, what has become known as 'public archaeology' and 'community archaeology' by the early twenty-first century are far different from what they were (or were not) at previous points in the theoretical and legislative history of archaeology (see Frost 2004;Jameson 2004;Soderland 2012 for histories written at various points in that long history). Community archaeology is a relatively recent development distinct from public archaeology (Marshall 2002;Little 2009;Silverman 2011;Jeppson 2012;Matthews and McDavid 2012) meaning archaeology within the public sphere, such as that writ large by the NPS's mission.…”