Archaeology, identity and development (2024)

A critique of the natural artefact: anthropology, art and museology

Constructing the Identities of Place: An Exploration of Māori and Archaeological Heritage Practices in Aotearoa New Zealand

This thesis examines a problem in current heritage practice, namely, the statutory management of archaeological sites separately from other heritage places with the consequent loss of many sites of importance to Māori. It explores places and the different meanings and practices of heritage constructed around them by archaeologists and Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand where such questions have not been critically examined in great depth. The study responds to this gap in the literature by setting out to develop a theory of heritage practice that enables the effective translation of peoples' heritage aspirations into a workable model of heritage management in place of the current framework. The research has used an interdisciplinary theoretical framework developed from the literature of heritage studies and related fields, which builds on Laurajane Smith's work on archaeology and the authorised heritage discourse, but also includes writing on governmentality, phenomenology, kinae...

Collecting in the South Sea: The Voyage of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux 1791-1794, ed. Bronwen Douglas, Fanny Wonu Veys, and Billie Lythberg (Leiden: Sidestone Press), 103–107, 2018

An analysis of an encounter in March 1793 between Māori and the crew of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, artefacts from which survive in Bergen, Norway. This book is a study of ‘collecting’ undertaken by Joseph Antoine Bruni d’Entrecasteaux and his shipmates in Tasmania, the western Pacific Islands, and Indonesia. In 1791–1794 Bruni d’Entrecasteaux led a French naval expedition in search of the lost vessels of La Pérouse which had last been seen by Europeans at Botany Bay in March 1788. After Bruni d’Entrecasteaux died near the end of the voyage and the expedition collapsed in political disarray in Java, its collections and records were subsequently scattered or lost. The book’s core is a richly illustrated examination, analysis, and catalogue of a large array of ethnographic objects collected during the voyage, later dispersed, and recently identified in museums in France, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. The focus on artefacts is informed by a broad conception of collecting as grounded in encounters or exchanges with Indigenous protagonists and also as materialized in other genres—written accounts, vocabularies, and visual representations (drawings, engravings, and maps). Historically, the book outlines the antecedents, occurrences, and aftermath of the voyage, including its location within the classic era of European scientific voyaging (1766–1840) and within contemporary colonial networks. Particular chapters trace the ambiguous histories of the extant collections. Ethnographically, contributors are alert to local settings, relationships, practices, and values; to Indigenous uses and significance of objects; to the reciprocal, dialogic nature of collecting; to local agency or innovation in exchanges; and to present implications of objects and their histories, especially for modern scholars and artists, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Introduction: Artistic Practices and Archaeological Research

Artistic practices and archaeological research, 2019

Printed ISBN 9781789691405. Epublication ISBN 9781789691412. Artistic Practices and Archaeological Research aims to expand the field of archaeological research with an anthropological understanding of practices which include artistic methods. The project has come about through a collaborative venture between Dragoş Gheorghiu (archaeologist and professional visual artist) and Theodor Barth (anthropologist). This anthology contains articles from professional archaeologists, artists and designers. The contributions cover a scale ranging from theoretical reflections on pre-existing archaeological finds/documentation, to reflective field-practices where acts of ‘making’ are used to interface with the site. These acts feature a manufacturing range from ceramics, painting, drawing, type-setting and augmented reality (AR). The scope of the anthology – as a book or edited whole – has accordingly been to determine a comparative approach resulting in an identifiable set of common concerns. Accordingly, the book proceeds from a comparative approach to research ontologies, extending the experimental ventures of the contributors, to the hatching of artistic propositions that demonstrably overlap with academic research traditions, of epistemic claims in the making. This comparative approach relies on the notion of transposition: that is an idea of the makeshift relocation of methodological issues – research ontologies at the brink of epistemic claims – and accumulates depth from one article to the next as the reader makes her way through the volume. However, instead of proposing a set method, the book offers a lighter touch in highlighting the role of operators between research and writing, rather entailing a duplication of practice, in moving from artistic ideas to epistemic claims. This, in the lingo of artistic research, is known as exposition. Emphasising the construct of the ‘learning theatre’ the volume provides a support structure for the contributions to book-project, in the tradition of viewing from natural history. The contributions are hands-on and concrete, while building an agenda for a broader contemporary archaeological discussion. http://archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={BAAF7F21-9F73-4A38-AACC-AD0DD3A5B31C}

Contemporary Indigenous Relationships to Archaeological Features: Agency, Affect, and the Social Significance of Rock Art

One of the major challenges facing archaeologists and cultural heritage/ resource managers is how to better approach and understand concepts of significance and value of archaeological features (e.g. stone tools, rock art sites, pottery, stone arrangements, shell middens) in contemporary Indigenous settings. In this article, I focus on exploring contemporary Indigenous engagement and interaction with one specific type of archaeological feature—rock art—to develop a better understanding of how significance and value are attributed to sites and motifs. Through the lens of affectual, relational, and cultural understandings of rock art in northern Australia and the American Southwest I examine the complex nature of encounters and responses (e.g. verbal and gestural) to sites and motifs to illustrate how concerns with significance go beyond the archaeological realm. Using Gell's (1992 The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology. In Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics, edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton, pp. 40–67. Claren-don Press, Oxford) ideas of agency and affect as a starting point, and then unpacking the responses that are elicited from visiting or viewing rock art, I focus on investigating the structure of the relationship between people and the contemporary social significance of archaeological features. A key outcome from this research is the realization that contemporary engagement with rock art is diverse and can be shaped by a variety of factors including ontological and epistemological understandings, emotional experiences (e.g. fear), social memory, and the health and well-being of individuals and communities.

A Whakapapa of Tradition: 100 Years of Ngāti Porou Carving, 1830–1930 by Ngarino Ellis

The Contemporary Pacific, 2022

Agency, affect and archaeologists: Transforming place with rock art in auwim, upper karawari-arafundi region, east sepik, Papua new Guinea

Rock Art Research, 2021

Agency, affect and archaeologist: transforming place with rock art in Auwim, upper Karawari Arafundi Region, East Sepik, Papua New Guinea

2021

International audienceContemporary narratives and interpretations surrounding rock art production in present-day settings provide important insights into rock art practices in the past and present. These traditions can still be seen today in places such as Africa, South America, Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG). In PNG’s East Sepik region, rock art stencils are still produced by the Auwim people of the Upper Karawari-Arafundi region. This paper presents a case study from Apuranga rock art site in Auwim village, East Sepik, where Auwim artists created stencils during a period of archaeological research in June 2018. Interviews with the Auwim artists revealed the stencils were made to transform a once-feared rockshelter into a place that the community could use again without fear or trepidation. This paper explores the implications of these events, the mechanisms for the rock art creation, the impact of researcher’s presence, and their broader relevance to studies of rock art in c...

Under the Shade Tree:Mortuary Rituals and Aesthetic Expression on theAnir Islands, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

2010

An Introduction to Unsettling Native Art Histories

Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast, 2020