The Archaeology of Poverty and the Poverty of Archaeology

Orser, Charles E.

doi:10.1007/s10761-011-0153-y

Cited by 36 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The exploration of derelict and abandoned places has become a common practice; recently coined as urban exploration, it has attained the status of a subdiscipline (Garrett ). According to Orser (), this fascination can be traced back to the nineteenth century when “the practice of slumming—visiting the poorest districts of the West's urban centers to view its residents and their conditions—was a common amusement of the upper and upper‐middle classes” (541). Paul Mullins () has also reflected on the idea of “ruin porn” and the strange fascination that ruins have recently sparked in popular culture (cf.…”

Section: The Blue House Fire: Documenting Social and Historical Displmentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of a Burnt House: An Archaeology of Negative Spaces and Dispossession

Angelo

2017

American Anthropologist

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The last few decades have witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented interest in the archaeology of the contemporary past. Here, building on that scholarship, I present a diachronic analysis of a fire that partially destroyed a late nineteenth-or early twentieth-century house in the city of Arica, Chile. Combining historical, archaeological, and ethnographic methods, I produce the frame for a biographic storytelling that lets the house tell about its life and take center stage in the fabrication of notions like morality and belonging, attesting to the production of social space. I contend that the house and its materiality have historically played a decisive role in the production of the mechanisms of dispossession and the displacement of its inhabitants through a negative portrayal. I conclude with some thoughts about how archaeology's privileged viewpoint of contextual historical scrutiny provides nuanced insights about the repercussions of current phenomena of gentrification and heritage making. [historical archaeology, nationalism, squatters, contemporary past, dispossession] RESUMEN En lasúltimas décadas se ha presenciado el surgimiento de un interés sin precedentes en la arqueología del pasado contemporáneo. Aquí, basado en la investigación, presento un análisis diacrónico de un incendio que destruyó parcialmente una casa de fines del siglo XIX o principios del XX en la ciudad de Arica, Chile. Combinando métodos históricos, arqueológicos, y etnográficos, planteo el marco para una narración biográfica que permite a la casa contar acerca de su vida y tomar protagonismo en la fabricación de nociones como moralidad y pertenencia, dando testimonio de la producción del espacio social. Afirmo que la casa y su materialidad han jugado históricamente un papel decisivo en la producción de los mecanismos de desposesión y desplazamiento de sus habitantes a través de una representación negativa. Concluyo con algunas ideas sobre cómo el punto de vista privilegiado de la arqueología del escrutinio histórico contextual provee una comprensión más aguda acerca de las repercusiones de los actuales fenómenos de aburguesamiento y producción de patrimonio. [arqueología histórica, nacionalismo, ocupantes, pasado contemporáneo, despojo] RESUMO Nasúltimas décadas, assistimosà emergência de um interesse sem precedentes pela arqueologia do passado contemporâneo. Com base nessa produção académica, apresentaremos neste artigo a análise diacrónica dos efeitos do incêndio que destruiu parcialmente uma casa do final do século XIX/início do século XX em Arica, no Chile. Através da articulação de métodos históricos, arqueológicos e etnográficos, pretendemos dar enquadramento a uma narrativa biográfica, deixar que a casa nos conte sobre a sua própria trajetória e que assuma o papel central na definição de noções de moralidade e de pertenç a, atestando a construção social do espaç o. Defendemos que a casa e a sua materialidade jogaram, através de representações negativas, uma função decisiva na produção de mecanismos de desapropriação...

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Section: The Blue House Fire: Documenting Social and Historical Displmentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of a Burnt House: An Archaeology of Negative Spaces and Dispossession

Angelo

2017

American Anthropologist

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“…Historical archaeologists of nineteenth-century cities have actively sought to self-critique their field, from exploring broad epistemological issues about the ambiguities of interpreting different kinds of historical evidence (Mayne 2007(Mayne , 2008, to examining more specific methodological questions about how to assess the quality of surviving material artefacts (Crook 2011), or experimenting with new and creative ways of writing up findings (Yamin 2001c). Certain areas of debate and critique have taken on a more overtly political character, such as those that concern the extent to which research on poor nineteenth-century households and urban communities has a tendency to replace an historical narrative of oppression and class-based inequality with one based around tales of individual tenacity and resilience, where needy individuals ultimately triumph against adversity (Orser 2011;Symonds 2011a, b). While such approaches might rescue the poor from the willfully distorting gaze of nineteenth-century writers and social reformers, critics argue that they are too easily re-cast as self-improving consumers -a perspective that sits all too comfortably with the neo-liberal values and mind-sets of twenty-first century scholars ignoring the structural constraints that confined many to a life of poverty (Symonds 2011a;see also Matthews 2011).…”

Section: On Nineteenth-century London)mentioning

confidence: 99%

People and Things on the Move: Domestic Material Culture, Poverty and Mobility in Victorian London

Owens

Jeffries

2016

Int J Histor Archaeol

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The development of what Mayne and Lawrence (Urban History 26: 325-48, 1999) termed Bethnographic^approaches to studying nineteenth-century households and urban communities has gathered momentum in recent years. As such research agendas have taken hold and been applied to new contexts, so critiques, methodological developments, and new intellectual and theoretical currents, have provided opportunities to enhance and develop approaches. This article contributes to this on-going process. Drawing upon household archaeological research on Limehouse, a poor neighborhood in Victorian London, and inspired by the theoretical insights provided by the Bnew mobilities paradigm,^it aims to place Bmobility^as a central and enabling intellectual framework for understanding the relationships between people, place, and poverty. Poor communities in nineteenth-century cities were undeniably mobile and transient. Historians and archaeologists have often regarded this mobility as an obstacle to studying everyday life in such contexts. However, examining temporal routines and geographical movements across a variety of time frames and geographical scales, this article argues that mobility is actually key to understanding urban life and an important mechanism for interpreting the fragmented material and documentary traces left by poor households in the nineteenth-century metropolis.

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“…This complacency obscures a deep-seated conservatism that does a disservice to past, present and future (cf. Orser 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Anarchist Archaeology of Equality: Pasts and Futures Against Hierarchy

Politopoulos,

Frieman,

Flexner

et al. 2024

CAJ

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Scholars of the past frame the ‘origins’ or evolution of inequality, usually using archaeological or anthropological evidence as a basis for their arguments, as an intentional, inevitable, important step towards the development of states, implicitly framed as the pinnacle of human political and economic achievement. Anarchist archaeologies reject the idea of hierarchy as a positive or inevitable evolutionary outcome underlying the path to civilization. We argue instead for a radical reorientation towards archaeologies of equality. We propose a prefigurative archaeology that celebrates the myriad ways that human beings have actively undermined and resisted hierarchical social arrangements. We aim to reorient archaeology's focus towards societies that purposefully prevented or constrained the emergence of inequality. To demonstrate the potential of archaeologies of equality we present case examples from Oceania, Britain, West Asia and the American Southwest. Highlighting the accomplishments of societies of equals in the past demonstrates the contingency and problematic nature of present forms of inequality. It allows us to explore a different set of pasts and thus enact different presents as we imagine different futures.

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The Archaeology of Poverty and the Poverty of Archaeology

Abstract: In this Editor's Introduction to this Special Contribution, I explore some central issues surrounding the archaeology of poverty and ponder why it has taken historical archaeologists so long to "discover" poverty as a research topic.

Cited by 36 publications

References 12 publications

Histories of a Burnt House: An Archaeology of Negative Spaces and Dispossession

Histories of a Burnt House: An Archaeology of Negative Spaces and Dispossession

People and Things on the Move: Domestic Material Culture, Poverty and Mobility in Victorian London

An Anarchist Archaeology of Equality: Pasts and Futures Against Hierarchy

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