The archaeology of knowledge
01 Sep 1989-pp 227-260
TL;DR: We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now as mentioned in this paper, and book is the window to open the new world.
Abstract: We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.
Citations
More filters
••
01 Dec 2009
TL;DR: The authors explored the ways in which Bronze Age bronze artefacts may, on occasions, have been used in the commemoration of place during the southern British Iron Age and found that these items often appear to have been deposited at sites with a pre-existing monumentality, suggesting that objects and places were felt to share "otherworldliness".
Abstract: ‘Esoteric knowledge is knowledge of the unusual, the exceptional, the extraordinary; knowledge of things that in some way lie beyond the familiar everyday world’ (Helms 1988, 13)
This paper explores the ways in which Bronze Age bronze artefacts may, on occasions, have been used in the commemoration of place during the southern British Iron Age. The chronologically-based typological systems adopted by archaeologists indicate that these artefacts occur out of their time as they were already several centuries old when they were buried, but it should not be supposed that Iron Age societies necessarily viewed these items entirely in terms of a linear sequence of time. While broadly similar in form and material to items in the cultural repertoire of contemporary society, the bronzes were also quite distinct in the particular forms that they adopted. That these items often appear to have been deposited at sites with a pre-existing monumentality may suggest that objects and places were felt to share ‘otherworldliness’. These items and places may have been used to construct esoteric knowledge through reference to spirits but it is also likely that particular acts of curation and deposition created genealogical associations, incorporating ideas of the mythical past into the context of the present. Drawing on the evidence for the form and contexts of depositions of these objects, this paper addresses the connected topics of what Iron Age society did to objects and sites derived from its own past and what we, in turn, do to (and can do with) the information derived from the Iron Age.
33 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: The authors analyzes newspaper coverage during wildfire events in two Western U.S. States and compares emergent themes with existing fire social science literature to demonstrate how newspaper coverage of wildfire events both draws from broader social contexts and continues to perpetuate notions of fire exclusion.
Abstract: News media are an important source of information that the public uses to collectively define and respond to wildfire. Yet research on this topic rarely examines the mechanisms behind continued messages of fire exclusion, despite prevailing scientific notions of wildfire as an inevitable and vital ecological process that residents should learn to live with. This study analyzes newspaper coverage during wildfire events in two Western U.S. States and compares emergent themes with existing fire social science literature. We use discourse analysis and the concept of framing to demonstrate how newspaper coverage of wildfire events both draws from broader social contexts and continues to perpetuate notions of fire exclusion. This is accomplished by focusing coverage on the threat to private property and in treating public lands as a “non-property.” Similarly, resident support or criticism of firefighting efforts is presented as contingent on the protection of private property.
33 citations
Cites background or methods from "The archaeology of knowledge"
...We use both discourse analysis and the concept of framing in an effort to better explain how media presentations are embedded in and drawn from larger economic, social, cultural and political contexts (Fairclough 2003; Foucault 1972)....
[...]
...Discourse is most commonly understood as the patterns of spoken or written language social actors use to communicate with each other (Fairclough 2003; Foucault 1972)....
[...]
••
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that the cultural anthropologists are the prisoners of their own authoritative images and linguistic protocols, and they need to escape procedures of dichotomizing, restructuring, and textualizing in the making of interpretative statements about foreign cultures and traditions.
Abstract: ones (in our actual discussion of Writing Culture we shall encounter them again more concretely): the epistemological consequences and the normative implications. Here, incidently, both feminist and critical anthropology play an important role both as historical source of inspiration and as potential source of critique of cultural anthropology’s literary turn. Briefly put, I think that the literary turn at least from this point of view consists of a crucial shift from an observational and empirical methodology to a communicative and dialogical epistemology (which may, of course, entail observational moments and empirical descriptions). Our conception of ethnological analysis and our activity as practicing ethnographers have changed accordingly: from a focus on the observing eye and the use of visual metaphors (as dominant in our culture as in our anthropology (see Lakoff & Johnson 1980)) to a concern with the expressive voice and the constitution of intersubjective understanding. Much more is involved in this crucial shift than meets the eye (literally and figuratively): questions of anthropological representation, praxis and production; of analytic and dialectical modes of understanding, experiencing and interpreting; of the relation between self, other and the nature of intersubjectivity; of science, power and cooptation; of speaking, listening and writing; of objectivity, relativism and ethnocentrism; of legitimacy, authority and truth; and perhaps most problematic of all of social critique and political praxis. All these issues are discussed in Writing Culture, though some more extensively than others and, as far as I am concerned, not all of them radically enough (in the epistemological and political sense of the term). In order to exemplify how such philosophic issues effect the concrete workings of the anthropologist, let me take as my point of departure the question that Clifford raises regarding the descriptive authority and analytic legitimacy of anthropological texts (see Clifford 1983 or his two contributions to Writing Culture). The issue here is not simply one of how to interpret an ethnographic document (e.g., Karp & Maynard 1983) nor or how to assess the ethnological reliability of a given anthropologist’s work (e.g., as in the recent Shabono case (see Holmes 1983 and Pratt in Writing Culture) or the celebrated Freeman-Mead controversy (see Brady 1983). Though these are certainly important issues, more fundamental still is the perennial question that Stocking singles out as cultural anthropology’s most enduring problem: ’Whether antropology offers forms of knowing that may be applied to all human subject matter even to the point of painful self-reflexivity or whether, in some profound sense historically delimited, it has simply been a way Europeans have invented of talking 36 about their darker brethren’ (and, I would add, ’sisters’) (Stocking 1982:419). I obviously cannot attent to this issue here (I have tried to make a beginning elsewhere see Scholte 1983), but I can at least indicate how Clifford addresses the problem. His approach is exemplary of the distinctive way in which the issue is treated by proponents of the literary approach several contributors to Writing Culture deal with similar problems applied to different texts. We need to reflect, according to Clifford, on the nature of cultural discourse, that is, on the style, rhetoric, logic, intellectualization, rationalization, etc. used by some people (mostly from the West) to describe, imagine, analyze, comprehend or coopt other people (often the Rest). The central problem, in other words, is very similar to Stocking’s but more specifically literary: ’Are (anthropological) discourses ultimately condemned to redundancy, the prisoners of their own authoritative images and linguistic protocols?’ Or can we instead ’(on.) escape procedures of dichotomizing, restructuring, and textualizing in the making of interpretative statements about foreign cultures and traditions?’ (Clifford 1980:209-210). Clifford’s question can be divided into two subsidiary ones. One is essentially literary: How are ethnographic authority and ethnological legitimacy constituted? The other is historical and, I would argue, in the last analysis political: why should anthropological viability have become so problematic recently? Why, in other words, should this specific issue have become so urgent at this particular time? While the second question hovers over every page of Writing Culture, it is not really addressed thoroughly. Though people like Asad, Clifford, Rabinow, and Tyler offer suggestive insights, there are few if any sustained arguments. More about this in a moment. The first question is discussed at length by all the contributors to Writing Culture and before I give some illustrations, let me summarize what I consider to be the most significant conclusion reached by the
33 citations
•
01 Apr 2018
TL;DR: The authors explored young women's relationship with feminism against the backdrop of a long-running media claim that "feminism is dead" from a feminist-influenced poststructuralist perspective.
Abstract: This thesis aims to explore young women’s relationship with feminism against the backdrop of a long-running media claim that ‘feminism is dead’ from a feministinfluenced poststructuralist perspective. Aapola, Gonick, and Harris (2004) note how young women tend to be constructed in three specific ways: 1) as repudiating a feminist subjectivity, 2) as apolitical and apathetic, and 3) as interpreting the world through an individualistic lens. I agree with theirs and Griffin’s (2001) sentiment that many assumptions have been made about young women’s relationships with feminism. I sought to build on previous research by conducting three studies. Study 1 and Study 2 were both media-text studies which investigated contemporary discourses relating to gender and feminism which are made available in (S1) women’s monthly magazines and (S2) online feminist blogs. Study 3 used minifocus groups with young women aged 18-30 years, in order to examine how discourses around feminism are co-constructed, as well as to identify which discourses from media (specifically women’s magazines and feminist blogs) women reproduced and/or challenged in their talk. A feminist-informed poststructuralist discourse analysis was used to analyse each dataset. This research identifies not only a strong underlying core of individualism running throughout participants’ talk (and operating across both media datasets), but also participants frequently repudiated terms such as ‘feminism’ and ‘women’s rights’ and instead positioned themselves as ‘equal rights advocate’. While participants deployed a discourse of gender neutrality to advocate a degendering of women’s rights issues to being ‘human rights’, participants were deploying this discourse to suggest that men ‘have it bad too’. Many participants seemed to prefer to look at equality issues through a genderneutral lens, and some participants felt unable to adopt a feminist subjectivity due to its perceived ‘exclusion’ of men. A feminist subjectivity was constructed by participants as passive and dependent. Instead, participants appeared to adopt the (apparently) active subject position of the ‘can-do girl’, who has individual agency and does not need to rely on support from the state, nor have any need for involvement in collective action such as feminist politics.
33 citations
Cites background from "The archaeology of knowledge"
...Bethany Frankel’s (2011) A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life....
[...]
•
28 Oct 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine existing Israeli and Palestinian archaeological and architectural inventories covering the occupied West Bank, as well as assessing the role of Geographic Information Systems for heritage management in this region.
Abstract: Effective protection and management of cultural heritage resources in a specific region requires planning strategies and policies, which rely on the sum of existing information about archaeology and cultural heritage. The role of archaeological inventories in the process of heritage management is, therefore, central and critical, as they are supposed to convey our present state of knowledge and be the basis on which management priorities are decided. This dissertation examines existing Israeli and Palestinian archaeological and architectural inventories covering the occupied West Bank, as well as assessing the role of Geographic Information Systems for heritage management in this region. Its main objectives are twofold: first, it explores the nature of archaeological records and the way they reflect particular research interests and heritage management priorities; and second, it examines variability in data quality, coverage, accuracy and reliability. By examining recording emphasis in West Bank inventories, this research interrogates the ways in which social, political, ideological or cultural values may affect different aspects of data collection and management. The assessment of different inventories through comparison, analysis and fieldwork, sheds light on current Israeli and Palestinian approaches to documentation and data management, as well as broader issues associated with the collection and use of information about the past in contexts of cultural conflict. Framed within the political context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this research has theoretical considerations and practical implications. On the theoretical side, it raises awareness of personal, academic and national interests, the ways they are manifested in archaeological inventories, and the means by which they dictate the process of cultural knowledge production. On the practical side, it provides a set of recommendations for ways to improve current data management and dissemination strategies, and thereby encourage more efficient decision-making processes and better protection and preservation of heritage sites in the West Bank.
33 citations
References
More filters
•
18 Jul 2003
TL;DR: Part 1: Social Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis 1. Introduction 2. Texts, Social Events, and Social Practices 3. Intertextuality and Assumptions Part 2: Genres and Action 4. Genres 5. Meaning Relations between Sentences and Clauses 6. Discourses 8. Representations of Social Events Part 4: Styles and Identities 9. Modality and Evaluation 11. Conclusion
Abstract: Part 1: Social Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis 1. Introduction 2. Texts, Social Events, and Social Practices 3. Intertextuality and Assumptions Part 2: Genres and Action 4. Genres 5. Meaning Relations between Sentences and Clauses 6. Types of Exchange, Speech Functions, and Grammatical Mood Part 3: Discourses and Representations 7. Discourses 8. Representations of Social Events Part 4: Styles and Identities 9. Styles 10. Modality and Evaluation 11. Conclusion
6,407 citations
••
TL;DR: A set of principles for the conduct and evaluation of interpretive field research in information systems is proposed, along with their philosophical rationale, and the usefulness of the principles is illustrated by evaluating three publishedinterpretive field studies drawn from the IS research literature.
Abstract: This article discusses the conduct and evaluatoin of interpretive research in information systems. While the conventions for evaluating information systems case studies conducted according to the natural science model of social science are now widely accepted, this is not the case for interpretive field studies. A set of principles for the conduct and evaluation of interpretive field research in information systems is proposed, along with their philosophical rationale. The usefulness of the principles is illustrated by evaluating three published interpretive field studies drawn from the IS research literature. The intention of the paper is to further reflect and debate on the important subject of grounding interpretive research methodology.
5,588 citations
•
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In Sorting Things Out, Bowker and Star as mentioned in this paper explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world and examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary.
Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.
4,480 citations
••
TL;DR: In this article, two such metaphors are identified: the acquisition metaphor and the participation metaphor, and their entailments are discussed and evaluated, and the question of theoretical unification of research on learning is addressed, wherein the purpose is to show how too great a devotion to one particular metaphor can lead to theoretical distortions and to undesirable practices.
Abstract: This article is a sequel to the conversation on learning initiated by the editors of Educational Researcher in volume 25, number 4. The author’s first aim is to elicit the metaphors for learning that guide our work as learners, teachers, and researchers. Two such metaphors are identified: the acquisition metaphor and the participation metaphor. Subsequently, their entailments are discussed and evaluated. Although some of the implications are deemed desirable and others are regarded as harmful, the article neither speaks against a particular metaphor nor tries to make a case for the other. Rather, these interpretations and applications of the metaphors undergo critical evaluation. In the end, the question of theoretical unification of the research on learning is addressed, wherein the purpose is to show how too great a devotion to one particular metaphor can lead to theoretical distortions and to undesirable practices.
3,660 citations
••
TL;DR: Problematization is proposed as a methodology for identifying and challenging assumptions underlying existing literature and, based on that, formulating research questions that are likely to lead to more influential theories.
Abstract: It is increasingly recognized that what makes a theory interesting and influential is that it challenges our assumptions in some significant way. However, established ways for arriving at research questions mean spotting or constructing gaps in existing theories rather than challenging their assumptions. We propose problematization as a methodology for identifying and challenging assumptions underlying existing literature and, based on that, formulating research questions that are likely to lead to more influential theories.
1,126 citations