Archaeological Knowledge Production and Global Communities: Boundaries and Structure of the Field

Submitted by Isto Huvila on Wed, 09/26/2018 - 15:59

Publication Type:

Journal Article

Authors:

Rimvydas Laužikas; Costis Dallas; Suzie Thomas; Ingrida Kelpšien\.e; Isto Huvila; Pedro Luengo; Helena Nobre; Marina Toumpouri; Vykintas Vaitkevičius

Source:

Open Archaeology, Volume 4, Number 1, p.350-364 (2018)

URL:

http://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2018-0022

Keywords:

archaeology-related communities, digital heritage, nonprofessional archaeology, semiosphere theory, Yuri Lotman

Abstract:

Archaeology and material cultural heritage enjoys a particular status as a form of heritage that, capturing the public imagination, has become the locus for the expression and negotiation of regional, national, and intra-national cultural identities. One important question is: why and how do contemporary people engage with archaeological heritage objects, artefacts, information or knowledge outside the realm of an professional, academically-based archaeology? This question is investigated here from the perspective of theoretical considerations based on Yuri Lotmans semiosphere theory, which helps to describe the connections between the centre and peripheries of professional archaeology as sign structures. The centre may be defined according to prevalent scientific paradigms, while periphery in the space of creolisation in which, through interactions with other culturally more distant sign structures, archaeology-related nonprofessional communities emerge. On the basis of these considerations, we use collocation analysis on representative English language corpora to outline the structure of the field of archaeology-related nonprofessional communities, identify salient creolised peripheral spaces and archaeology-related practices, and develop a framework for further investigation of archaeological knowledge production and reuse in the context of global archaeology.

Taxonomy terms:

Archaeology and Archaeological Information in the Digital Society shows how the digitization of archaeological information, tools and workflows, and their interplay with both old and new non-digital practices throughout the archaeological information process, affect the outcomes of archaeological work, and in the end, our general understanding of the human past.

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Taking Health Information Behaviour into Account: implications of a neglected element for success- ful implementation of consumer health technologies on older adults (HIBA) is an Academy of Finland funded research project at Åbo Akademi University.

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ARKDIS project maps the implications and opportunities of the digitalisation of information and information work in the domain of archaeology and to develop and evaluate conceptual and practical methods and procedures for enhancing archaeological information work in the digitalised environment.

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