Thinking with, through, and against Archaeology’s Politics of Knowledge

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Thinking with, through, and against Archaeology’s Politics of Knowledge" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For decades, advances in various strands of critical archaeologies have forced the discipline to grapple with its politics of knowledge. Building on these conversations, we examine the “categories, concepts, and ways of knowing” with which archaeological narratives are generated and reconfigured (Stoler 2016:10). This session reflects on the politico-ethical worlds that are interpellated when engaging “regimes of truth” (Stoler 2016). We ask participants to scrutinize topics pulled into the orbit of, and excised from, various research and political agendas. Topics include, but are not limited to, “labor,” “queer,” “difference,” “indigenous,” “race,” “enslavement,” “disability,” “religion,” and “ethics.” What histories emerge from attending to what constitutes our knowledge and what our knowledge constitutes? What politics, perspectives, and realities are created and foreclosed? What subtle forms of violence are revealed, but also deepened, concealed, or perpetuated? What “ethics” does this necessitate? Participants are also encouraged to draw on history, ethnography, literature, and language to engage archaeology’s politico-ethics of knowledge, as well as the politico-ethics of their own practices. What ways of narrating are interrupted? What does this mean for archaeology’s place in the world—personally, professionally, and in classrooms? What are the limits of such a project?