Doing Archaeology in Non-State Space
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33431Keywords:
community archaeology, consensus and collaboration, non-state spaceAbstract
Non-state space can be defined as a type of social space in which permanent hierarchies of various sorts are actively resisted or prevented from emerging. I reflect on my experiences working as an archaeologist doing collaborative field research on Erromango Island, Vanuatu, which fits many of the characteristic features of non-state spaces. Fieldwork on Erromango reflects paradoxical habits of scepticism regarding outsiders, while being welcoming and accommodating at the same time. A potential exists in the interfaces between state and non-state space to reconsider what is possible in research, and in our engagements with our own and other societies.
References
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Flexner, J. L. 2014. “The Historical Archaeology of States and Non-States: Anarchist Perspectives from Hawai‘i and Vanuatu.” Journal of Pacific Archaeology 5 (2): 81–97.
____. 2016. An Archaeology of Early Christianity in Vanuatu: Kastom and Religious Change on Tanna and Erromango, 1839-1920. Canberra: Australian National University Press. https://doi.org/10.22459/TA44.12.2016
Gordon, J. 1863. The Last Martyrs of Eromanga, Being a Memoir of the Rev. George N. Gordon, and Ellen Catherine Powell, his Wife. Halifax, Nova Scotia: MacNab and Shafer.
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Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell.
Naupa, A., ed. 2011. Nompi en Ovoteme Erromango: Kastom Mo Kalja Blong Erromango: Kastom and Culture of Erromango: La Coutome et Culture d’Erromango. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Erromango Cultural Association.
Pred, A. 1984. “Place as Historically Contingent Process, Structuration and the Time-Geography of Becoming Places.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74 (2): 279–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1984.tb01453.x
Robertson, H. A. 1902. Erromanga, The Martyr Isle. Toronto: Westminster Company.
Rousseau, J. 2001. “Hereditary Stratification in Middle-Range Societies.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7 (1): 117–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.00053
Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
____. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
____. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Spriggs, M. 1986. “Landscape, Land Use, and Political Transformation in Southern Melanesia.” In Island Societies: Archaeological Approaches to Evolution and Transformation, edited by P. V. Kirch, 6–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
____. and S. Wickler. 1989. “Archaeological Research on Erromango: Recent Data on Southern Melanesian Prehistory.” Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 9: 68–91. https://doi.org/10.7152/bippa.v9i0.11283
Tuhiwai Smith, L. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd edition). London: Zed Books.
Welch, J. R. 2017. “Cycles of Resistance.” SAA Archaeological Record 17 (1): 17–20.
Wengrow, D. and D. Graeber. 2015. “Farewell to the ‘Childhood of Man’: Ritual, Seasonality, and the Origins of Inequality.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21 (3): 597–619. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12247
Young, M. W. 2004. Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884-1920. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Crumley, C. L. 1987. “A Dialectical Critique of Hierarchy.” In Power Relations and State Formation, edited by T. C. Patterson and C. W. Gailey, 155–169. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association.
Cunningham, J. J. and S. MacEachern. 2016. “Ethnoarchaeology as Slow Science.” World Archaeology 48 (5): 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1260046
Flexner, J. L. 2014. “The Historical Archaeology of States and Non-States: Anarchist Perspectives from Hawai‘i and Vanuatu.” Journal of Pacific Archaeology 5 (2): 81–97.
____. 2016. An Archaeology of Early Christianity in Vanuatu: Kastom and Religious Change on Tanna and Erromango, 1839-1920. Canberra: Australian National University Press. https://doi.org/10.22459/TA44.12.2016
Gordon, J. 1863. The Last Martyrs of Eromanga, Being a Memoir of the Rev. George N. Gordon, and Ellen Catherine Powell, his Wife. Halifax, Nova Scotia: MacNab and Shafer.
Graeber, D. 2004. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Hägerstrand, T. and A. Karlqvist. 1979. “Space, Time and Human Conditions.” In Dynamic Allocation of Urban Space, edited by L. Lundqvist and F. Snickars, 3–12. Farnborough, UK: Saxon House.
Humphreys, C. B. 1926. The Southern New Hebrides, An Ethnological Record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell.
Naupa, A., ed. 2011. Nompi en Ovoteme Erromango: Kastom Mo Kalja Blong Erromango: Kastom and Culture of Erromango: La Coutome et Culture d’Erromango. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Erromango Cultural Association.
Pred, A. 1984. “Place as Historically Contingent Process, Structuration and the Time-Geography of Becoming Places.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74 (2): 279–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1984.tb01453.x
Robertson, H. A. 1902. Erromanga, The Martyr Isle. Toronto: Westminster Company.
Rousseau, J. 2001. “Hereditary Stratification in Middle-Range Societies.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7 (1): 117–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.00053
Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
____. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
____. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Spriggs, M. 1986. “Landscape, Land Use, and Political Transformation in Southern Melanesia.” In Island Societies: Archaeological Approaches to Evolution and Transformation, edited by P. V. Kirch, 6–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
____. and S. Wickler. 1989. “Archaeological Research on Erromango: Recent Data on Southern Melanesian Prehistory.” Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 9: 68–91. https://doi.org/10.7152/bippa.v9i0.11283
Tuhiwai Smith, L. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd edition). London: Zed Books.
Welch, J. R. 2017. “Cycles of Resistance.” SAA Archaeological Record 17 (1): 17–20.
Wengrow, D. and D. Graeber. 2015. “Farewell to the ‘Childhood of Man’: Ritual, Seasonality, and the Origins of Inequality.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21 (3): 597–619. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12247
Young, M. W. 2004. Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884-1920. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Published
2019-01-26
Issue
Section
Anarchy and Archaeology Forum - OPEN ACCESS
How to Cite
Flexner, J. L. (2019). Doing Archaeology in Non-State Space. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 5(2), 254-259. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33431
