TAG2019-UCL

Our text books tell the orthodox story of how archaeology, as a discipline and a profession, has unfolded. Mostly constructed from the perspectives of straight white men, we hear how they moved through the theoretical paradigms, developing theories and methods which have become standardised and enshrined in our contemporary practices and heritage organisations. In between those grand themes however, unrecorded movements, initiatives and individuals did their own things in an effort to make a difference. How representative, therefore, are the ‘official’ accounts of what has happened? For some time, the feminist critique has been particularly strong in illustrating women who have “trowelblazed” (Cf. https://trowelblazers.com/) their way through the profession, and feminism has made real impacts in challenging persisting standard narratives. In the 1980s Archaeologists for Peace, together with Archaeologists Communicate Transform, briefly emphasised the wider concerns of archaeologists, attempting to promote the social investment archaeology makes. Before them, RESCUE was formed as a pressure group which retains that focus today. What other such stories might there be, of people getting together, or acting on their own, to protest, pressurise, influence and change the progress of archaeology on its otherwise established, and establishment-led, course? How, through their actions, have relatively unknown figures tilted at the relationships of power and knowledge between the establishment and the rest of us? How many more untold stories can be rescued from the margins? In this session we invite papers that build upon this examination of the intertwining of theory and practice, to tell the radical untold histories of archaeology.

Organisers: Hannah Cobb; University of Manchester • Duncan Brown; Historic England

9:30 | Hannah Cobb, University of Manchester; Duncan Brown, Historic England | Session introduction

9:35 | Jude Plouviez, RESCUE; Robin Densem, RESCUE | Rescue - A Secret Society?

9:55 | Kate Geary, CIfA; Rob Lennox, CIfA | ‘The Establishment’ Strikes Back: What CIfA activists are doing and why you should care

10:15 | Duncan Brown, Historic England | Archaeologists Communicate Transform!

10:35 | Kevin Wooldridge, Independent | How a group of archaeologists, supported by their trade union, took on management and won the largest ever protective award made by a UK industrial tribunal…

10:55 | Session organisers | Discussion

11:10 | - | BREAK

11:40 | Iia Shuteleva, UFA, Russia; Nikolai Shcherbakov, UFA, Russia; Tatiana Leonova, UFA, Russia | The "power of non-violence" or "Gandhism" of Russian provincial archaeology.

12:00 | Andy Hoaen, Open University; Stephen Sherlock, Independent | NO FUTURE: FROM MSC schemes to Master of Science Courses

12:20 | Hannah Cobb, University of Manchester | Reflecting on Reflexivity

12:40 | Session organisers | Discussion

13:00 | - | END