Not All Archaeology for the Public is Public Archaeology

Summary

The concept of public archaeology has become ubiquitous since the last decade and, gradually, it seems to have been accepted as an important component of archaeological research. However, despite the wider popularization of the concept, its operationalization still poses challenges to archaeologists interested in surpassing the academic and professional sphere. Here, I reflect on the procedural guidelines and implications that public archaeology has recently attained and some of the challenges they raise considering study cases in northern Chile. My aims in this presentation are twofold: first, to briefly sketch some of the scenarios in which this concept is commonly thought of or applied to in northern Chile; and, second, to explore the use public archaeology as a tool to approach the dynamics embedded in the relationships between past and present.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage