Archaeo-Becoming, Zarankin-Centrism and Contaminated Presents
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.36915Keywords:
Social archaeologyAbstract
Some time ago Cristóbal Gnecco and Henry Tantalean had the provocative idea of encouraging a reflection about the way archaeologists and non-archeologists change their lives by working and existing together. This encounter between people is not considered important, or material for analysis for archaeology. However, they are “contaminants” (in the sense of both being affected by one another).
In the specific case of Antarctica, these other “actors” are non-human (there are no native people – besides the researchers and logistic personnel). Animals, things, light/darkness, cold, snow, landscapes, etc., are the “actors” with which we interact. It is from this contact through time, that we change them and ourselves as well. This “contaminations” end affecting the histories we build and the way we do it. At the same time, I have asked myself several times: where in our academic texts are the experiences that marked us? The adventures? The sadness? The smiles and spilled tears?
Another issue in my history as an archaeologist was the work at concentration camps from the last dictatorship in Argentina. The people I have met, the materiality from these places of destruction, affected and changed me.
It is in this sense that this work is a personal self-reflection of my affective and transformative “relationship” with these two themes in which I have been working during the past 20 years.
References
Favret-Saada, J. 1990. "Être affecté."Gradhiva 8: 3-9.
Funari, P. P., A. Zarankin and M. A. Salerno, eds. 2009. Memories from Darkness: Archaeology of Repression and Resistance in Latin America. New York: Kluwer/Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0679-3
Kiddey, R., A. Daffnis, J. Hallam and M. Brate. 2015. "Journeys in the City: Homeless Archaeologists or Archaeologies of Homelessness." Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 2 (2): 235-244. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v2i2.29592
Leinfelder, R., A. Hamann, J. Kirstein and M. Schleunitz. 2017. Science Meets Comics: Proceedings of the Symposium on Communicating and Designing the Future of Food in the Anthropocene. Berlin: Christian A. Bachmann. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.556383
Pellini, J. R., A. Zarankin and M. Salerno, eds. 2017. Sentidos indisciplinados. Arqueología, sensorialidad y narrativas alternativas. Madrid: JAS.
Salerno, M. A. and A. Zarankin. 2015. "Consolidar lo hecho; ir por lo que falta: Una reflexión sobre la arqueología de la última dictadura militar en Argentina." ArkeoGazte 5: 151-163. https://doi.org/10.20396/rap.v10i2(16).8645948
Shanks, M. and C. Tilley. 1987. Reconstructing Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Tantalean, H. and C. Gnecco. 2019. Arqueologias Vitales. Madrid: JAS.
Zarankin, A. 2014. "'A persistência da memória'... histórias não-lineares de arqueólogos e foqueiros na Antártica." Revista de Arqueologia (Sociedade de Arqueologia Brasilera) 27 (2): 36-45. https://doi.org/10.24885/sab.v27i2.402
____. 2015. "Archaeology of a Tear: Delusions in a Tent in a Stormy Day in Antarctica." In Coming to Senses: Topics in Sensory Archaeology, edited by J.R. Pellini, A. Zarankin and M. A. Salerno, 11-20. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. https://doi.org/10.18224/hab.v16i2.6592
____. 2017. "The Heritage Horror Show: A Critical Analysis of the Relationship Among Monuments, Power, and People." In Latin American Heritage: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Brazilian and Argentinian Case Studies, 67-81. New York; Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58448-5_5
____. and M. J. Cruz. 2017. Arqueología contaminante: Narrativas y una crítica a la falacia del distanciamiento del arqueólogo y su objeto de estudio en la experiencia antártica. In Sentidos indisciplinados arqueología, sensorialidad y narrativas alternativas, edited by J. R. Pellini, A. Zarankin and M. Salerno, 345-370. Madrid: JAS. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787443440.005
____. and C. Niro. 2006. "La materialización del sadismo. Arqueología de la arquitectura delos centros clandestinos de detención de la dictadura militar argentina (1976-1983)." In Arqueología de la represión y la resistencia en América Latina en la era de las dictaduras (décadas de 1960-1980), edited by P. P. Funari and A. Zarankin, 159-182.
____. and M. A. Salerno. "So Far, So Close. Approaching Experience in the Study of the Encounter Between Sealers and the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica, Nineteenth Century)." In Antarctica and the Humanities, edited by R. Peder, L. M. Van der Watt and A. Hawkins, 79-103. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
____., M. A. Salerno and C. Perosino. 2012. Historias desaparecidas: arqueología, memoria y violencia política. Córdoba: Encuentro.
____. and M. X. Senatore. 2013. "Contos, 'Piexe Grande' e Arqueologia; Repensando o Caso da Antartida." In Tempos Ancestrais, edited by W. Morales and F. Moi, 281-301. São Paulo: Annablume.
