The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison, and Angela Piccini

Oxford Handbooks

Provides an authoritative overview of an emerging subfield
Written by a diverse and leading group of international and interdisciplinary scholars working on innovative new themes and in non-traditional archaeological contexts
Fully illustrated throughout, and includes three photo-essays which reflect on some of the key themes in the Handbook

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison, and Angela Piccini

Description

It has been clear for many years that the ways in which archaeology is practised have been a direct product of a particular set of social, cultural, and historical circumstances - archaeology is always carried out in the present. More recently, however, many have begun to consider how archaeological techniques might be used to reflect more directly on the contemporary world itself: how we might undertake archaeologies of, as well as in the present. This Handbook is the first comprehensive survey of an exciting and rapidly expanding sub-field and provides an authoritative overview of the newly emerging focus on the archaeology of the present and recent past. In addition to detailed archaeological case studies, it includes essays by scholars working on the relationships of different disciplines to the archaeology of the contemporary world, including anthropology, psychology, philosophy, historical geography, science and technology studies, communications and media, ethnoarchaeology, forensic archaeology, sociology, film, performance, and contemporary art. This volume seeks to explore the boundaries of an emerging sub-discipline, to develop a tool-kit of concepts and methods which are applicable to this new field, and to suggest important future trajectories for research. It makes a significant intervention by drawing together scholars working on a broad range of themes, approaches, methods, and case studies from diverse contexts in different parts of the world, which have not previously been considered collectively.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison, and Angela Piccini

Oxford Handbooks

Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
List of Figures
Introduction, Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison and Angela Piccini
Part 1: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
2:The relationship between ethnoarchaeology and archaeologies of the contemporary past: a historical investigation, Kathryn Fewster
3:Forensic archaeology, Natasha Powers and Lucy Sibun
4:Anthropological approaches to contemporary material worlds, Penny Harvey
5:The place of things in contemporary history, Tim Cole
6:Canonical affordances: the psychology of everyday things, Alan Costall and Ann Richards
7:To the things themselves again: observations on what things are and why they matter, James Gordon Finlayson
8:STS, symmetry, archaeology, Timothy Webmoor
9:Actor-Network-Theory approaches to the archaeology of contemporary architecture, Albena Yaneva
10:Global media and archaeologies of network technologies, Sean Cubitt
11:Performance and the stratigraphy of place: Everything You Need to Build a Town is Here, Wrights & Sites (Stephen Hodge, Simon Persighetti, Phil Smith and Cathy Turner)
Part 2: Recurrent Themes
12:Time, Laurent Olivier
13:Absence, Severin Fowles and Kaet Heupel
14:Ruins, Gavin Lucas
15:Memory, Bjørnar Olsen
16:Authenticity, Paul Graves-Brown
17:Sectarianism, Laura McAtackney
18:Afterlives, Michael Brian Schiffer
19:Waste, Joshua Reno
20:Heritage, Rodney Harrison
21: Difference, Denis Byrne
22:Modernism, Alfredo González-Ruibal
23:Protest, Anna Badcock and Robert Johnston
24:Homelessness, Larry J. Zimmerman
25:Conflict, Gabriel Moshenska
26:Disaster, Richard A. Gould
27:Scale, Matt Edgeworth
Part 3: Mobilities, Space, Place
28:Aluminology: An Archaeology of Mobile Modernity, Mimi Sheller
29: The Archaeology of Space Exploration, Alice C. Gorman and Beth Laura O Leary
30:Contemporary Archaeology in the Postcolony: Disciplinary Entrapments, Subaltern Epistemologies, Nick Shepherd
31:Archaeologies of Automobility, Peter Merriman
32:Archaeology of Modern American Death: Grave Goods and Blithe Mementos, Shannon Lee Dawdy
33: A Dirtier Reality? Archaeological Methods and the Urban Project, John Schofield
34: Heritage and Modernism in New York, Laurie A. Wilkie
35:Checkpoints as Gendered Spaces: An autoarchaeology of War, Heritage and the City, Uzma Z. Rizvi
36:Race and Prosaic Materiality: The Archaeology of Contemporary Urban Space and the Invisible Colour Line, Paul R. Mullins
Photoessay: Institutional Spaces, Peter Metelerkamp
Part 4: Media and Mutabilities
37:Between the Lines: Drawing Archaeology, Helen Wickstead
38:Two riots: The importance of civil unrest in contemporary archaeology, James R. Dixon
39:The Materiality of Film, Liz Watkins
40:The Burning Man Festival and the Archaeology of Ephemeral and Temporary Gatherings, Carolyn L. White
41:Olympic City Screens: Media, Matter and Making Place, Angela Piccini
42:Material Animals: An Archaeology of Contemporary Zoo Experiences, Cornelius Holtorf
Photoessay: On Salvage Photography, Caitlin DeSilvey, with photographs by Steven Bond and Caitlin DeSilvey
Part 5: Things and Connectivities
43:Silicon Valley, Christine Finn
44:Building Thought into Things, David de Léon
45:Archaeologies of the Postindustrial Body, Sefryn Penrose
46:The Material Cellphone, Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller
47:The contemporary material culture of the cult of the infant: constructing children as desiring subjects, Sarah May
48:VHS: A Posthumanist Aesthetics of Recording and Distribution, Jem Noble
49:Auto-anthropology, modernity and automobiles, Pierre Lemonnier
Photoessay: The Other Acropolises: Multi-temporality and the Persistence of the Past, Yannis Hamilakis and Fotis Ifantidis
Index

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison, and Angela Piccini

Oxford Handbooks

Author Information

Edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Honorary Senior Research Associate, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, Rodney Harrison, Reader in Archaeology, Heritage and Museum Studies, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and Angela Piccini, Senior Lecturer in Screen Media, School of Arts, University of Bristol

Paul Graves-Brown is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. In addition to the edited volume Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture (2000), he has published widely on topics as diverse as the Sex Pistols and the Kalashnikov AK47.

Rodney Harrison is a Reader in Archaeology, Heritage and Museum Studies at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is currently Chair of the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) Group. He is the author (with John Schofield) of After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past (OUP, 2010), and founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology.

Angela Piccini is a Senior Lecturer in Screen Media at the School of Arts, University of Bristol. She co-founded the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) Group with Dan Hicks, and sits on the Committee for Audio-Visual Scholarship and Practice in Archaeology (CASPAR). She publishes on place, materiality, and screen media.

Contributors:

Anna Badcock (ArcHeritage)
Steven Bond (Photographer)
Denis Byrne (Office of Environment and Heritage New South Wales/University of Technology Sydney)
Tim Cole (University of Bristol)
Alan Costall (University of Portsmouth)
Sean Cubitt (University of London)
Shannon Lee Dawdy (University of Chicago)
David de Léon (Sony Mobile Communications, Sweden)
Caitlin DeSilvey (University of Exeter)
James R. Dixon (PLaCE Bristol)
Matt Edgeworth (University of Leicester)
Kathryn Fewster (Independent Researcher)
James Gordon Finlayson (University of Sussex)
Christine Finn (University of Bradford)
Severin Fowles (Barnard College, New York)
Alfredo González-Ruibal (Institute of Heritage Sciences, CSIC)
Alice C. Gorman (Department of Archaeology, Flinders University; Adjunct Fellow, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Australian National University)
Richard A. Gould (Brown University)
Paul Graves-Brown (Institute of Archaeology, University College London)
Yannis Hamilakis (University of Southampton)
Rodney Harrison (University College London)
Penny Harvey (University of Manchester)
Kaet Heupel (Columbia University, New York)
Stephen Hodge (Wrights & Sites; Department of Drama, University of Exeter)
Cornelius Holtorf (Linnaeus University, Kalmar)
Fotis Ifantidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Robert Johnston (University of Sheffield)
Pierre Lemonnier (Aix Marseille Université, Marseille, France)
Gavin Lucas (University of Iceland)
Richard Maxwell (Queens College, City University of New York)
Sarah May (Independent Researcher)
Laura McAtackney (School of Social Justice, University College Dublin)
Peter Merriman (University of Aberystwyth)
Peter Metelerkamp (University of Bristol)
Toby Miller (University of California)
Gabriel Moshenska (University College London)
Paul R. Mullins (University Indianapolis)
Jem Noble (Artist)
Beth Laura O'Leary (New Mexico State University)
Laurent Olivier (Musée d'Archéologie nationale, Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
Bjørnar Olsen (University of Tromsø)
Sefryn Penrose (Atkins Heritage/Institute of Archaeology; University of Oxford)
Simon Persighetti (Wrights & Sites; School of Media and Performance, Falmouth University)
Angela Piccini (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television, University of Bristol; Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia)
Natasha Powers (Museum of London Archaeology)
Joshua Reno (Binghamton University)
Ann Richards (Independent Researcher)
Uzma Z. Rizvi (Pratt Institute, New York)
Michael Brian Schiffer (University of Arizona)
John Schofield (University of York)
Mimi Sheller (Drexel University)
Nick Shepherd (University of Cape Town)
Lucy Sibun (Archaeology South East, Centre for Applied Archaeology; Institute of Archaeology, University College London)
Liz Watkins (University of Leeds)
Timothy Webmoor (University of Colorado)
Carolyn L. White (University of Nevada)
Helen Wickstead (Kingston University, London)
Laurie A. Wilkie (University of California, Berkeley)
Phil Smith (Wrights & Sites; School of Humanities and Performing Arts, Plymouth University)
Cathy Turner (Wrights & Sites; Department of Drama, University of Exeter)
Albena Yaneva (University of Manchester)
Larry J. Zimmerman (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis)

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Rodney Harrison, and Angela Piccini

Oxford Handbooks

Reviews and Awards

"contains a richly eclectic collection of papers ... their collective impact lies in their remarkable and unpredictable diversity." - Dr John Manley, Current Archaeology