World Archaeology

ISSN: 0043-8243 (Print) 1470-1375 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20

Decolonial archaeologies: from ethnoarchaeology

to archaeological ethnography

Yannis Hamilakis

To cite this article: Yannis Hamilakis (2016): Decolonial archaeologies: from ethnoarchaeology
to archaeological ethnography, World Archaeology, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2016.1209783

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1209783

Published online: 11 Aug 2016.

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WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1209783

Decolonial archaeologies: from ethnoarchaeology to archaeological

ethnography
Yannis Hamilakis
Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University

A dialogue is always a good thing; and the dialogue on the origins, the problems, the current state
and the potential future of ethnoarchaeology as a relic or as a still viable intellectual endeavour is
of particular interest and import. In reading this interesting and engaging set of papers, it becomes
immediately clear that such a conversation is not merely to do with an archaeological sub-
discipline which, as admitted by Lyons and Casey, many archaeologists today regard a thing of
the past. It is mostly about the very definition of archaeology itself. As such, I will attempt here to
link this discussion to the wider contemporary debates on the ontology of archaeology and on its
political underpinnings and role in the contemporary moment.
Many canonical texts in the discipline, especially in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, would present
ethnoarchaeology as a fairly coherent and clearly defined sub-field, associated at its origins with
‘New Archaeology’, and developed primarily in North America and Britain, perhaps in a couple of
other European countries. But a closer look would reveal that many of the practices now
associated with ethnoarchaeology have been developing in many parts of the world, partly
independently and partly in a critical dialogue with the Anglo-American tradition (see Fewster
2013; Politis 2015; Sillar and Ramón Joffré this volume). The dialogue of professional/Western
archaeologists with indigenous people and traditions has often been, as Bill Sillar and Gabriel
Ramón Joffré note, the driving force of such alternative strands of thought, and it is debatable
whether they can be called ‘ethnoarchaeological’ in the conventional sense. There is thus a danger
that the term may come to denote a very disparate range of phenomena with divergent, and
perhaps contradictory, ontologies, epistemological directions and even political affinities. To claim
them all as ethnoarchaeological may be expedient for the advocates of this field, but it is, at the
end of the day, disingenuous and even confusing. Most of the criticism of ethnoarchaeology,
including my own (Hamilakis 2011; Hamilakis and Anagnostopoulos 2009) in fact had in mind the
foundational principles as presented and practised by the people who came to be considered
pioneers in this field, primarily within the Anglo-American tradition.
While most of the authors here seem to want to distance themselves from that dominant
tradition, the defensive position adopted by Lyons and Casey echoes these earlier principles,
despite the rhetorical proclamations of the opposite. For a start, they are at pains to emphasize,
time and again, that ethnoarchaeology is not a theory but a method. This is a cop-out. It absolves
them of any responsibility for the theoretical underpinnings of the sub-field, for its relationship to
time and otherness, let alone its political undertones and effects.

CONTACT yannis Hamilakis y.hamilakis@brown.edu

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 Y. Hamilakis

Analogic inference has been a foundational operational principle of ethnoarchaeology in its

most conventional guises, to the point that the critics of ethnoarchaeology are branded by Lyons
and Casey as analogically illiterate. But relational, as opposed to formal analogies (cf. Wylie 2002),
are at the centre of much of what we do in archaeology, whether we believe in ethnoarchaeology
or not. Analogic inference is not the most fundamental and defining issue of ethnoarchaeology. I
would argue that it is temporality, and the relationship of ethnoarchaeology with alterity, with the
process of othering, which have shaped the sub-field (see also the papers by Brady and Kearney,
and Cunningham and MacEachern).
The most influential, Anglo-American versions of ethnoarchaeology developed as part of the
foundational principles of modernist and positivist archaeology, with its tacit acceptance of linear
temporality, the metanarrative of evolutionary development and ‘progress’ and the perhaps
inadvertent allochronization of the people and communities who were deemed outside Western
modernity: the denial that these people were coeval with archaeologists (cf. Fabian 1983) and that
their lives and choices were and are intricately linked to those of the researchers who came to
study them. These were the communities which became the primary targets of ethnoarchaeolo-
gical research, communities which were denied the right of partaking in the time of modernity, the
right to perform and enact their own alter-modern lives, often beyond and outside the dominant
modes of modernist temporal understanding, beyond ‘progress’ or capitalism. These communities
were constituted as objects of observation, not as social agents who could project their own
histories and even their own archaeologies, that is, their own discourses and practices, on
materiality and temporality. The valorization of such alterative perceptions and practices as
alternative archaeologies would have relativized Western, official and professional archaeologies,
would have encouraged epistemic humility and would have promoted a deep reflexive question-
ing of the roots and foundations of our own endeavour. Inevitably, the colonial heritage of the
discipline and its often neo-colonial present would have been exposed and critiqued. Sadly, most
practitioners in this field, despite the exceptions such as most of the contributors to this section,
opted instead for the intellectual security and certainty of modernist archaeology: ethics and
politics are inherently discomforting, and thus better avoided. This is what conventional eth-
noarchaeology mostly did, as pointed out by Politis (2015, 61; cf. Fewster 2001 for an exception).
It is fair to accept, however, that there is a good deal of interesting, useful and important work
carried out under the rubric of ethnoarchaeology today. Several practitioners have questioned the
epistemic certainties of the field, have engaged with other fields such as indigenous archaeologies,
and some have even critiqued the political undertones of the endeavour. Examples in this journal
issue would include the suggestion by Cunningham and MacEachern that ethnoarchaeology can
be projected as a slow science and as an antidote to the ‘big data’ science of modernist
professional archaeology which is, much too often today, enthralled by neoliberal capitalism
and its destructive influence. Or the statement by Brady and Kearney that a sincere dialogue
with indigenous groups can expose the temporal chauvinism of ethnoarchaeology, and modernist
archaeology more broadly, with their assumptions on the superiority and universal applicability of
lineal temporality, and their clear distinction between past and present. Despite all this interesting
work, however, I would suggest that the intellectual baggage and the history of ethnoarchaeology
are such that to continue using this rubric for such kind of important work would prevent its wider
uptake, and do more harm than good. Hence my proposal to shift from ethnoarchaeology to
archaeological ethnography.
Elsewhere (Hamilakis 2011; Hamilakis and Anagnostopoulos 2009), we have traced the contours
of archaeological ethnography, which we deliberately decided not to call a method, or a sub-
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 3

discipline, but rather a shared, trans-cultural space of coexistences and interactions among people
and communities of diverse origin and background: professional archaeologists, socio-cultural
anthropologists, scholars from other fields, artists, entering collaboratively into a continuous
creative and productive dialogue with people and communities, and with their discursive and
practical engagements involving matter and time. Very often, an archaeological site operates as
the meeting ground and the point where many of these interactions take place, but in several
other cases, other spaces, not considered archaeological, provide the material focus for these
encounters.
Interestingly, the term archaeological ethnography was first used by some early pioneers of
ethnoarchaeology (e.g. Watson 1979), and is still used by other practitioners today, known since
the 1970s for their ethnoarchaeological work but wishing to stay clear of the associations and
conventional overtones of ethnoarchaeology, and its othering processes (e.g. Forbes 2007, 5).
While archaeological ethnography thus has been so far linked primarily with matters of cultural
heritage, and alternative understandings and uses of archaeological sites, the research remit of this
shared space of encounters can be, and is, in fact, far wider. It includes all matters conventionally
studied by ethnoarchaeology, including formation processes, technologies, food, depositional
practices and interspecies interaction.
While this new re-conceptualization of archaeological ethnography is still under development,
and, as such, is subject to multiple understandings and re-shapings, we have suggested that
critical reflexivity, a holistic understanding of a context or a theme and a multi-sited research
approach rather than a spatially circumscribed one should be some of its fundamental principles.
Archaeological ethnography is not ‘an archaeology of us’ but inevitably, in its most successful
renderings, forces us to ‘excavate’ our own collective subjectivity and disciplinary culture; like all
true encounters, it is a mutually transformative process. Furthermore, such encounters should be
attuned to the multi-sensorial nature of experience, as well as the trans-corporeal landscape of
affectivity that envelops ‘researchers’ and ‘interlocutors’ alike (cf. Hamilakis 2013). As Brady and
Kearney implied in their article, we must be receptive to the affective impact of such encounters,
to be ready to be ‘touched’ by experience, and even to modify, reshape or even abandon any pre-
conceived plans, when an activist action or a simple, ethically necessary act takes priority.
Archaeological ethnography also dispenses with modernist linear temporality, and is open to
the various modes of temporal and historical understanding encountered, accepting that materi-
ality and sensoriality are inherently multi-temporal: matter, due to its durational properties, enacts
multiple times as coexistence rather than as succession, whereas the senses are both past and
present, since every sensorial perception carries with it the memories of previous sensorial
experiences (Bergson 1991; Hamilakis 2013).
Let me offer an example of a contemporary situation, a phenomenon that most of us will be
increasingly confronted with, as continuous regional warfare and climate change attain an urgency
and establish a permanent presence: forced migration has dominated the news in Europe in
recent years, as hundreds of thousands of refugees and undocumented migrants from the Middle
East and Africa attempt to cross into Europe. This crossing is increasingly done by sea, in dinghies
and overcrowded inflated rafts, as land crossing was blocked by walls and fences, the material
manifestations of the ‘Fortress Europe’ mentality. The Mediterranean is thus turning into a grave-
yard, its coasts now replete with material remnants of this border-crossing experience: shipwrecks,
life vests, clothing, shoes, toys, small personal objects, bodies. During a recent visit to the Greek
island of Lesbos in April 2016, I encountered several such ‘archaeological sites’, some still main-
taining the olfactory presence of fleeing humans.
4 Y. Hamilakis

What would an appropriate archaeological response be in this case? To use ethnoarchaeologi-

cal terminology, I was witnessing site-formation processes in the making, and in theory I was able
to both record the discarded material and interview the people who left them there. This is a great
ethnoarchaeological moment, one would think, a unique opportunity to record an episode of
mass migration and its material correlates, and gain information which could be very useful to
archaeologists who study migration, or even to archaeologists of the contemporary past.
Except that this would have been, to put it mildly, an opportunistic response, an academic
‘disaster capitalism’ (Klein 2007), an instrumentalization of an experience which is often frighten-
ing, painful or even tragic: witness the informal, makeshift cemeteries on border Mediterranean
islands, with their simple, anonymous graves. And yet I do believe that we archaeologists have
much to contribute in the current moment, with our expertise on materiality and temporality. An
ethically and politically sensitive archaeological ethnography of contemporary forced migration is
not only possible but also necessary and urgent. This will involve us not only recording the
material remnants encountered, but also and perhaps primarily and more importantly being
there, witnessing, disseminating information and experience to others, raising consciousness,
directing sensorial attention to materialities and affectivities that either pass unnoticed or are
purposely suppressed. At the same time, this would involve entering into a dialogue with migrants
and border-crossers, understanding their own material and temporal sensitivities, their own
perceptions and practices on time and matter, their own archaeologies. Furthermore, it would
require us being constantly aware that any modes of recording and, even more, ‘representation’
carry with them huge ethical and political implications which are not covered, or even anticipated,
by our standard and bureaucratized ‘informed consent’ procedures. And that understanding the
materiality of the phenomenon will involve archaeological ethnography in multiple sites, from the
routes that the border-crossers have taken, to the centres of managerial and bureaucratic ascrip-
tion and government and to the material renderings and evocations of the phenomenon on the
internet.
Moreover, we will have to accept that the persona of the researcher may have to be temporarily
abandoned, that any hopes of or pretensions to recording and data gathering may have to give
way to more urgent tasks, from providing immediate assistance to operating as an activist, in
staging various protests or writing media pieces, for example. This should not be advocacy for a
‘victimized’ other, but collective activist action, involving both researchers and migrants. This
archaeology is de facto political, and potentially under constant suspension. Such an endeavour
can start only from a redefinition of the ontological and epistemic ground of modernist archae-
ology. It is also one that can have a transformative impact on its practitioners (see de Leon 2015
for a USA example).
As a last word, at a time when we have finally opened the debate on the ontology of
archaeology itself, on what archaeology is, at a time when we have moved from the authoritative,
singular notion of archaeology and its certainties to a diverse range of archaeologies, some official
and professional, and some unofficial, indigenous or bottom-up, it is paramount that we shift from
a colonial or national archaeology and even from an facile, assumingly post-colonial discourse that
embraces difference and plurality, to decolonial archaeologies: archaeologies which accept that
decolonization is an on-going process, not a target which has been or will be achieved any time
soon; reflexive archaeologies that continually strive to decolonize their own ontologies, discourses
and practices as well as position themselves critically in the battlegrounds of the present (cf.
Mignolo 2011). Some colleagues may feel that they can do that under the disciplinary label of
ethnoarchaeology. I have argued here that such a label may be more of a liability than an
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 5

advantage today, especially since alternatives, such as archaeological ethnography, and no doubt
others, are available.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Yannis Hamilakis is Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies at
Brown University. He has taught at the University of Wales Lampeter (1996–2000) and the University of
Southampton (2000–16), and has held numerous fellowships and visiting appointments, including at the
Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton (2012–13) and the Getty Research Institute (2005–06). His main
research and teaching interests are the archaeology of the senses, archaeological ethnography, the politics
of archaeology, archaeology and photography and Mediterranean archaeology. His recent books include
Archaeology and the Senses: Human Experience, Memory and Affect (2013), Camera Graeca: Photographs,
Narratives, Materialities (2015, co-edited with Philip Carabott and Eleni Papargyriou) and Camera Kalaureia:
An Archaeological Photo-ethnography (2016, co-authored with Fotis Ifantidis).

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