Bezerra, M. - Non-Western Societies, Archaeology and South America. In: Silberman, Neil Asher (ed.) - The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford University Press. (in print)
Length: 1.118 words Introduction To deal with the relations between archaeology and non-western societies implies, a priori, in considering the ontological nature of each one of these two concepts. Archaeology and non-western societies are a western invention, emerged in contexts biased by dominant ideologies. The study of the “other” in Anthropology legitimated the consolidation of the occidental/non-occidental opposition; in Archaeology it was extended to its ancestrality. If Anthropology created and exoticized the “other”, Archaeology, in its turn, created and exoticized the “other’s” past. In South America, areas of confluence between archaeologists and the past of native groups are more and more numerous. The critique towards this binary, reductionist and colonizing structure has mobilized representatives of various ethnic groups and researchers in the fight for cultural rights. Archaeology and Indigenous Peoples in South America Throughout its trajectory, Archaeology has re-elaborated itself, but it has not completely lost its colonialist component. The “isms” that adjectivize its discipline trajectories alternate the discourses of inclusion and exclusion of native communities in archaeological practice. The field of archaeology is at times considered as a private domain of specialists, and other times as a public domain shared by distinct groups interested in the past. In South America, this alternation does not happen with the same intensity. Marked by a strong empiricism, the South American archaeologies – which do not form a homogeneous group – were constructed under the optic of the culture history paradigm. This perspective, allied to the idea inherited from the nineteenth century about “indigenous extinction”, and later to the discourse of their victimization, 1
contributed to the establishment of asymmetrical relations with the native communities. In the 1970s, the critic to archaeological praxis crystallized the Latin-American Social Archaeology (see Politis and Alberti, 1999). However, since the Marxist ideas were not accepted in the majority of South American countries, Social Archaeology limited itself to Peru and Venezuela. Therefore, reflections on the verticalized relations between archaeologists and native communities took a long time before having a place in the agenda of South American archaeology as a whole. This panorama was configured, in ways more or less intense, at local, regional and national levels (see Gnecco and Ayala, 2011). Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, the growth of indigenous activism has implicated in the progressive change on the outline of relations between researchers and natives (see Warren and Jackson, 2002). However, until recently, there was little interest by indigenous natives towards archaeological heritage. One of the reasons is the construction of the idea of discontinuity between the present and the past (see Gnecco and Ayala, 2011). This logic is incorporated by natives, who do not wish to represent themselves through the heritage of their supposed ancestors. This feeling is shared by other, non-indigenous, communities, where archaeological sites and objects are feared. In the Amazonian region, for example, archaeological material culture is a source for the elaboration of visagens, a native category meaning ‘apparitions’ or ‘ghost narratives’. In South American archaeology, these other forms of interpretation of the past, and its connections to the present, only began to be considered as a result of local demands; many of which appeared, over the last years, in contexts of intense conflict. The social, political, cultural and ethnical disputes are aggravated by some situations. Amongst these, stand out: the fight for territory; the management of archaeological heritage and the repatriation of human remains.
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Processes regarding the claiming of indigenous lands are increasing. They refer to archaeological sites as elements of identity incorporated into the indigenous collective, even if archaeological data do not indicate relations of ancestrality. In the fight for their rights, archaeological heritage is seen as a diacritical signal in the processes of selfrepresentation. Archaeological evidences have constituted a type of material substratum of the mythical universe, while also being mobilized as a legitimate political resource. The paradox lies in the fact that the concept of heritage (sites and archaeological objects) – a category created by the Nation-state – is strongly based in materiality and its duration in time. That is, a historical perspective, which does not consider the dynamic and the memorial logic of the construction of the past by indigenous natives. The idea of heritage is, by essence, contrary to the processes of the constitution of ethnical identities (see Gnecco and Ayala, 2011). In this sense, the management of archaeological heritage is also a contested territory in South America. The protagonism of indigenous groups in the management of archaeological sites and objects in not consensus amongst archaeologists, and even less so amongst State managers. Despite this, communities of descendants and nondescendants have been well-successful in their revindications, as can be seen in examples of co-management of site museums in South America, gathered by Silverman (2006). The quarrel over the control of archaeological vestiges has reached its peak in the movement for repatriation of human remains. Evidenced cases in several countries, such as Chile, Argentina (see Ayala in Gnecco and Ayala, 2011) and, most recently, in Brazil, are still few, but point to a new direction in the relations between archaeology, archaeologists and indigenous communities. More than this, it indicates the urgency in rethinking the meanings of archaeology itself.
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In the middle of the 1980’s, the commodification of archaeological practice by development projects has incited conflicts in various regions of South America and turned archaeology hostage of the capitalist agenda. The increase of indigenous and non-indigenous social movements in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, amongst others, has provoked an epistemological critique of the discipline, the unraveling of conservative colonialist perspectives through multiculturalism, and the deconstruction of historically established asymmetrical relations (for reflections on multiculturalism see Gnecco in Gnecco and Ayala, 2011; see also Haber in Gnecco and Ayala, 2011). Disturbances in the relations between archaeology and non-western societies in South America still persist. The dissonance reveals other epistemologies of material culture, of the past and of archaeology itself. South American archaeologists have reflected upon these and other questions (Gnecco and Ayala, 2011; Silverman, 2006), that involve distinct views of the world Changes in the political scenario of the discipline occur at different rhythms and intensities in the south of America. Consonance should be looked for in the critical voices of archaeologists and indigenous intellectuals (Gnecco and Ayala, 2011) who advocate the symmetrical agency over Archaeology. Bibliography Gnecco, Cristóbal and Ayala, Patricia, eds – Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology in Latin America. Left Coast Press, 2011. Politis, Gustavo G. and Alberti, Benjamim, eds – Archaeology in Latin America. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. Silverman, Helaine, ed. – Archaeological Site Museums in Latin America. Gainsville, Florida: University of Florida Press, 2006.
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Warren, Kay B. and Jackson, Jean E., eds. – Indigenous Movements, SelfRepresentation, and the State in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Translated from Portuguese by Leandro Matthews Cascon
Marcia Bezerra
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