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Heading south, looking north

Why we need a post-colonial archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Nick Shepherd
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Abstract

Archaeology has to re-think the terms of its practice, because current debate tends to intervene at the level of theory, which leaves the discipline ungrounded in a theory of practice or a conception of the historical coming into being of archaeology as a discipline. From a South African perspective, its grand narrative is primarily concerned with the development of social theory in the West but it does not provide - it cannot provide – an account of the formation of the discipline as a social and signifying practice situated in a broader social and political context. Central to this re-thinking, I argue, are questions of social value, and the role played by archaeology in projects of restitution, social justice, memory and identity.

Keywords

colonialismSouth Africapostcolonial archaeologyarchaeological theory
Type
Essay Competition
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , December 2002 , pp. 74 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2002

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