Questioning Capitalism

Summary

In order to expand the intellectual depth of historical archaeology, we need to seriously question capitalism. Although the discipline has used capitalism to define the field for decades, practitioners have seldom confronted what capitalism actually is. Recent political transformations have made capitalism both more ubiquitous and invisible than ever. We commonly reify capitalism as a ‘thing’ that is fully formed and exists independently of people and their social relationships. Capitalism, of course, is not a ‘thing’ but a set of social relations always in a state of ‘becoming’. Case studies show how we can use our research to explicate how capitalism has unfolded over time, humanize these processes, and help us understand just how contested and contingent its history has been. Even more important, we can use this knowledge to help articulate a non-capitalist vision for the future, perhaps the clearest way that our work can be socially relevant.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014   •
• Questions that Will Count in the Future: Global Perspectives on Historical Archaeology

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-7,25