Archaeologies of the Contemporary World

Posted: 26 Oct 2017

See all articles by Rodney Harrison

Rodney Harrison

University College London

Esther Breithoff

University College London

Date Written: October 2017

Abstract

Archaeologists have long been interested in contemporary material culture, but only recently has a dedicated subfield of archaeology of the contemporary world begun to emerge. Although it is concerned mainly with the archaeology of the early to mid-twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in its explicit acknowledgment of the contemporary archaeological record as multi-temporal, the subfield is not defined by a focus on a specific time period so much as a particular disposition toward time, material things, the archaeological process, and its politics. This article considers how the subfield might be characterized by its approaches to particular sources and its current and emerging thematic foci. A significant point of debate concerns the role of archaeology as a discipline through which to explore ongoing, contemporary sociomaterial practices—is archaeology purely concerned with the abandoned and the ruined, or can it also provide a means by which to engage with and illuminate ongoing, contemporary, and future sociomaterial practices?

Suggested Citation

Harrison, Rodney and Breithoff, Esther, Archaeologies of the Contemporary World (October 2017). Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 46, pp. 203-221, 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3058745 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041401

Rodney Harrison (Contact Author)

University College London ( email )

Gower Street
London, WC1H 0NN

Esther Breithoff

University College London ( email )

Gower Street
London, WC1H 0NN

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
287
PlumX Metrics