Archaeology as an Engine or a Camera?

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeology as an Engine or a Camera?," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From international espionage to NSF funding, the role of the state in modern archaeology has taken many forms over the last century. At a theoretical level, it is unclear how these relationships have impacted the interpretations of archaeologically recovered cultures. While this is not a unique academic relationship to state, in other cases it may have been more critically examined. In economics, for example, Donald MacKenzie has noted internal and external concerns that the field has often functioned more as an engine—meant to drive specific behavioral responses—rather than as a camera—meant to record accurate representations. Given the dependency of archaeological fieldwork on substantial resources, this symposium addresses the forms of impact that relations to state may have and what alternatives are either available or even viable. Through the frames of hegemonic, counter-hegemonic and ahegemonic archaeological approaches, we explore potential impacts on interpretation as well as the relationships they might facilitate with fields such as Indigenous, Ethnic and Feminist Studies.