Theory in the Field

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Barrett ◽  
Sue Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Cultural Resource Management ◽  
Data Recovery ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge ◽  
The Moment

Archaeological fieldwork is normally treated as a matter of applying techniques that are designed to recover particular data sets, which have been identified either on the basis of research priorities or by the concerns of cultural resource management. The data are treated as objectively secure, whilst their interpretation might be open to question. The role of theory is widely assigned to the process of interpretation, and therefore often treated as an optional aspect of the analysis that is excluded from the process of data recovery. We counter this characterization by treating theory as one of the essential tools required by the fieldworker to enable the critical evaluation of the procedures by which archaeological knowledge is constructed. Such a theorized perspective pre-eminently requires that the procedures of fieldwork help fieldworkers to develop an interpretive archaeology of people in an informed way at the moment of fieldwork.

The Role of Museums in Cultural Resource Management

1979 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew L. Christenson
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Resource Management ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Careful Evaluation ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Early Step

Cultural resource management is often considered to end when endangered resources are collected or excavated. Actually, this is only an early step in the process. An increasing proportion of our preserved cultural heritage is being managed in museums, and it is in museums that much future archaeological research will have to be done. This brief essay reviews the role of museums in cultural resource management and points to the need for a careful evaluation of the adequacy of current archaeological curation systems.

Assembling Archaeology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Cobb ◽  
Karina Croucher
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Undergraduate Student ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Cultural Resource Management ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Archaeological Practice ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Perspective

This book provides a radical rethinking of the relationships between teaching, researching, digging, and practicing as an archaeologist in the twenty-first century. The issues addressed here are global and are applicable wherever archaeology is taught, practiced, and researched. In short, this book is applicable to everyone from academia to cultural resource management (CRM), from heritage professional to undergraduate student. At its heart, it addresses the undervaluation of teaching, demonstrating that this affects the fundamentals of contemporary archaeological practice, and is particularly connected to the lack of diversity in disciplinary demographics. It proposes a solution which is grounded in a theoretical rethinking of our teaching, training, and practice. Drawing upon the insights from archaeology’s current material turn, and particularly Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblages, this volume turns the discipline of archaeology into the subject of investigation, considering the relationships between teaching, practice, and research. It offers a new perspective which prompts a rethinking of our expectations and values with regard to teaching, training, and doing archaeology, and ultimately argues that we are all constantly becoming archaeologists.

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