‘Violent care’? A response to Lynn Meskell and Trinidad Rico

Abstract

mapped the desert landscape from above. Technocratic programmes like those outlined above reinforce a sense of superiority for Westerners in cultural and technical matters. Bell (2015, xiii) described such interventions as ‘vast schemes for the government of the universe’. However, as history reminds us, those claiming to bring knowledge and civilization are often ultimately the destroyers, looters and beneficiaries of other people’s pasts. Hijacking ISIS, whether in copying the Palmyrene arch or having a Russian orchestra play in the Roman amphitheater (Plets 2017; Meskell 2018), reflects the enormous desire of foreign states, international bodies, academics and entrepreneurs to triumph. Some of these efforts have ultimately backfired. In Florence, the IDA had purportedly forged a ‘true global symbol of the triumph of co-operation over conflict, optimism over despair, and human ingenuity over senseless destruction’. Stobiecka enumerates such quests, often shrouded in a military lexicon, where technology fights back: ‘3D printers can help undo the destruction of ISIS.’ The same was true with Bamiyan. The motivations are reflective of deep desires by the international community to rewrite history and tell a story of success, rather than the failures of heritage agencies like UNESCO (Isakhan and Meskell 2019). Furthermore, a kind of fatigue has developed around the Syrian humanitarian crisis: thus it is easier to fixate on monumental loss than on the ongoing plight of people. Although well intentioned, such virtual efforts reside in Stobiecka’s ‘exclusive zone set by archaeologists, art historians, conservators’ (p. 124). In the main, they reveal our ignorance of regional events and disciplinary histories. She recommends that archaeologists ‘resign from the digital armoury’ (p. 124). While sympathetic to Stobiecka’s arguments, I remain wary of the academic industry that continues to flourish around Palmyra. Yes, the archaeological adventurism and opportunism of the early 20th century have been refashioned into new forms of international technocratic expertise. But in fetishizing the arch, and indeed its copies, we also risk participating in the same discourses that are being critiqued. More sobering still is that the topics that scholars formulate (and seek to have funded) have simply been recalibrated to the insidious practice of ‘crisis chasing’ (Cabot 2019). The crisis is about salvage, albeit our own, since what is unfolding in Syria and Iraq has inevitably saved and spawned myriad institutions, foundations, digital start-ups, initiatives and research, with a new mission and moral charge. Perhaps now we should be considering whether we are creating ever more hostages to fortune.