Minding the gap: Attempts at community archaeology and local counter-narratives at an archaeological site in Turkey

Baltali Tirpan S. H.

JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY, cilt.22, sa.3, ss.235-254, 2022 (AHCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 22 Sayı: 3
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1177/14696053221102911
  • Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Anthropological Literature, Index Islamicus, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, PAIS International
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.235-254
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Archaeological ethnography, community archaeologies, local communities, subjectivity, heritage, decolonizing counter-narratives, Kerkenes, Turkey, ETHNOGRAPHY, POWER
  • İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Community archaeologies should emerge from an awareness of the ways in which archaeological praxis is embedded with multiple pasts, subjectivities, materialities, and national and transnational histories. This longitudinal archaeological ethnography explores the lived experiences, perceptions of the past, and relationship to archaeology and archaeologists amongst villagers residing near the Kerkenes site in Turkey after attempts by the project to develop heritage awareness, a sustainable local economy, and collaborative management of the site within the community. However well-intentioned, considerable challenges to closing the gap in understanding between archaeologists and locals can arise when the efforts of archaeologists become entangled in larger socio-political frameworks beyond their control. Villagers have experienced being dehumanized as Muslim migrant workers in Europe and were Islamic-based nationalist supporters of the conservative Erdogan regime. The archaeologists' heritage-making practices inadvertently triggered symbolic associations of the project with the colonial endeavor. Locals produced counter-narratives about the site as a decolonizing response.