Overview of the writing culture at Dickinson College. Describes writing in the First-Year Seminar, writing-intensive, senior capstone, and English Language learner courses.

The Writing Culture

Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress. Raphaël Lemkin

Researchers have increasingly promoted an emerging paradigm of Indigenous archaeology, which includes an array of practices conducted by, for, and with Indigenous communities to challenge the discipline's intellectual breadth and political economy. McGhee (2008) argues that Indigenous archaeology is not viable because it depends upon the essentialist concept of “Aboriginalism.” In this reply, we correct McGhee's description of Indigenous Archaeology and demonstrate why Indigenous rights are not founded on essentialist imaginings. Rather, the legacies of colonialism, sociopolitical context of scientific inquiry, and insights of traditional knowledge provide a strong foundation for collaborative and community-based archaeology projects that include Indigenous peoples.

The Premise and Promise of Indigenous Archaeology

Is the tide turning? There was a time when terrorism, or even the suggestion of terrorism, could arouse the media, politicians, the military, the business community and the public, like no other phenomenon. Thousands of books, films, TV shows and radio talk programs were devoted to trying to understand what was widely seen as the scourge of the contemporary world. Such a level of interest certainly contributed to the growth of new University courses and a steady student demand. But if we were a business -or should we treat Universities as businesses given their attitude to cost effectiveness etc? -would we now be looking to downsize having passed our peak? Are those of us involved in the "terrorism industry," as critics have described it without apparently being aware that they were as much a part of it as anyone else, facing a cultural trend making terrorism a "yesterday's course"?

The Age of Terrorism

In recent years the bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands has seen enormous progress. This new and exciting research is synthesised, contextualised and expanded upon in The Routledge Handbook of Bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. The volume is divided into two broad sections, one dealing with mainland and island Southeast Asia, and a second section dealing with the Pacific islands. A multi-scalar approach is employed to the bio-social dimensions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands with contributions alternating between region and/or site specific scales of operation to the individual or personal scale. The more personal level of osteobiographies enriches the understanding of the lived experience in past communities. Including a number of contributions from sub-disciplinary approaches tangential to bioarchaeology the book provides a broad theoretical and methodological approach. Providing new information on the globally relevant topics of farming, population mobility, subsistence and health, no other volume provides such a range of coverage on these important themes.

The Routledge handbook of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands

If the past is never dead, as Faulkner asserts, then its fragments must pervade the present. The shards of the past insinuate themselves into what we see, and don’t see, value, and don’t value, subtly informing every gaze, every movement, every decision. The privileges we enjoy, or don’t enjoy, the inequities we fail to notice, or rail against, are the individual legacies of our shared pasts. Thus, a proper acknowledgment of history is basic to an understanding of the present circumstances of our societies. If we are to create a better future, the past has to be embraced, in both its accomplishments and its failures. Humphrey McQueen addresses this issue in terms of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians:

Decolonizing Indigenous Archaeology: Developments from Down Under

Using the Islamic State/Da'esh as a case study, we identify the genesis of a new form of terrorism arising from the convergence of networked social media and changes in the forms of conflict. Socially mediated terrorism is defined as ‘the use of social and networked media to increase the impact of violent acts undertaken to further a social, political and/or religious cause with the aim of creating physical, emotional or psychological suffering that extends beyond the immediate audience'. Our analysis distinguishes three strategies involving cultural heritage. The first is smoke, mirrors and mock destruction, which exaggerates perceptions of power and tests the impact of potential destruction. The second is shock, awe and censure, which uses international outrage to cloak the Islamic State with an aura of invincibility and highlight the impotence of its opponents. The third is financing the Kaliphate, which has transformed the ad hoc looting of archaeological sites into a business model. Iconoclasm has a ...

The Islamic State’s symbolic war: Da'esh's socially mediated terrorism as a threat to cultural heritage

The Ethics of Collaboration. Whose Culture? Whose Intellectual Property? Who Benefits?

This paper identifies the emergence of the pursuit of social justice as a core focus of collaborative archaeologies in Aboriginal Australia. A wide range of case studies are examined, especially in relation to efforts to redress a ‘deep colonisation’ that silences Indigenous histories and fails to engage with Indigenous voices or experiences. This research is part of a wider global movement of community-based, activist and engaged archaeology that encompasses two principle approaches to social justice: the redistribution of resources and goods and the politics of recognition. It is informed by a more general concern with human rights, structural violence and ethical globalisation. In Australia, social justice archaeologies are both confronting, in terms of frontier violence, intentional structural violence and racism, but also inspirational/aspirational, in terms of Aboriginal nation building and the cultural facilitation of Aboriginal research ethics. The development of collaborative projects between Indigenous peoples and (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) archaeologists can be challenging. Indigenous archaeologists face particular challenges, including balancing sometimes conflicting expectations from communities with the demands of the profession. For non-Indigenous archaeologists, the challenge lies in the shift from working with Indigenous peoples to working for Indigenous peoples as part of a process in which social justice outcomes are a product, rather than a by-product, of archaeological research.

Pursuing Social Justice Through Collaborative Archaeologies in Aboriginal Australia

Using an ethnographic approach, this research assesses common assumptions in rock art research in terms of their validity for Aboriginal rock art sites in the Barunga region of the Northern Territory, Australia. In particular, we assess the potential and limits of the commonly held assumption that open or restricted access to sites and/or the meaning of motifs can be assessed by determining the visibility of the site or image within the landscape. This research calls into question some assumptions that are core to contemporary archaeological method and theory. Our results challenge the notion that a secluded location, or difficulty of access, is needed to restrict access to a site. “Hidden” sites do not need to be hidden, as site access is controlled by a plethora of cultural rules. Moreover, sites that appear to be hidden within the landscape may be open access sites, although access may be restricted for periods of time. Conversely, sites that are visible and accessible from a landscape perspective can be subject to restricted access, regulated through social rules. In addition, the results question the notion that the control of secret information in rock art sites is determined by the visibility and location of motifs and sites. Hidden meanings are not necessarily related to hidden locations or the low visibility of the art, since cultures can have many other ways of hiding meaning. Finally, the results of this study challenge the commonly held dichotomy between sacred/restricted access and secular/open access.

/pdf/hidden-sites-hidden-images-hidden-meanings-does-the-location-emoklii6d5.pdf

Gary Jackson

Papers

Decolonizing Indigenous Archaeology: Developments from Down Under

The Islamic State’s symbolic war: Da'esh's socially mediated terrorism as a threat to cultural heritage

The Ethics of Collaboration. Whose Culture? Whose Intellectual Property? Who Benefits?

Pursuing Social Justice Through Collaborative Archaeologies in Aboriginal Australia

Hidden sites, hidden images, hidden meanings: does the location and visibility of motifs and sites correlate to restricted or open access?