Public Archaeology: Theoretical Approaches and Current Practices

Abstract

In the nearly five decades since McGimsey (1972) published Public Archaeology and gave a name to an emerging field of practice, archaeologists wrestling with practical, ethical, and legal imperatives have extended tremendously the domain of public archaeology. McGimsey’s vision was limited and essentially self-serving for the profession: educate the public so they will support us and, perhaps, provide volunteer labour. Two decades later, Schadla-Hall empowered archaeologists to search for the ‘public’ in virtually every element of their practice when he declared that public archaeology is ‘concerned with any area of archaeological activity that interacted or had the potential to interact with the public’ (Schadla-Hall, 1999: 147). By the late 2010s, public archaeology and its concerns have become the subject of university degrees and public mandates are embedded in laws, treaties, and the codes of ethics of professional bodies. Increasingly, public archaeology is begging for some organizing principles to position it in the broader (and itself broadening) discipline of archaeology. Not surprisingly, a cluster of books has emerged that, taken together, constitute first efforts to convert the arguably inchoate practice of public archaeology into a recognizable discipline. That is, to impose some boundaries on the discipline, to initiate development of theories of practice and accepted methodology, and to position public archaeology and its close cousin community archaeology within historical, ethical, and legal issues of concern to archaeologists generally. Merriman’s (2004) volume, also named Public Archaeology, was perhaps the first of these. In recent years, we have seen a growing number of efforts to theorize, codify, and define the boundaries, however broad, of public archaeology. Moshenska (2017; Moshenska & Dhanjal, 2012) has been a driver of this effort, albeit with a largely European focus. Okamura and Matsuda (2012) have extended the range of the discourse to other parts of the globe. Specialists have focused on practice in specific international contexts (e.g. Schmidt & Pikirayi, 2016) or areas of public contact such as educational practice (Bender&Messenger, 2019; Erdman, 2019). Specialized journals such as Public Archaeology, the Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, country-specific online public archaeology journals, and a host of specialist heritage publications have further extended the literature. Into this emerging genre, Isi̧lay Gürsu has introduced an intriguing highbred volume, part theoretical and historical overview, part case studies in three Mediterranean contexts (Turkey, Crete, and Italy). As do several of the recent books, this volume touches on the history of the public in archaeology, public archaeological education and engagement, looting and treasure seeking, human rights, the commoditization of heritage and its converse — the economic value of archaeological resources, and the practice of cultural heritage management as it impacts on local communities. What is distinctive about Gürsu’s book is the manner in which it puts a human face on issues and challenges that feel impersonal in much archaeological scholarship. Gürsu’s volume begins with three chapters that focus on the evolution and theoretical foundations of public archaeology. A chapter by Reuben Grima does an admirable job of putting public archaeology in broad historical context, from nineteenth-century interest in colonial public archaeology, Vol. 17 No. 4, November 2018, 214–216