Toward a Bioarchaeology of Social Change: Moving Beyond the Myth of Scientific Neutrality

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In his article, Bioarchaeology as Anthropology (2003:27), George Armelagos noted that, "scientists’ perceptions of their discipline clearly influence how they frame their research agenda." This paper will illustrate how all such agendas are politicized. To engage with violence in the past from the safety of your labs and computer screens is nothing more than to tell a fable with the hopes that it might be true and heard by others in their labs in front of their screens. Violence is visceral and real. Why should a mother who wails about her child’s brains being sprayed across her body care about the abstraction of our discipline? We must confront the myth that the science of bioarchaeology can be apolitical. We must move beyond being engaged intellectuals in the public sphere. We must recognize that, until our work affects policy, we are, at best, intellectual distractions and, at worst, self-serving academic elites. Doing this work requires confidence in our possibilities. Enough self-preoccupation. The possibilities for bioarchaeology are greater than what we are doing. This paper explores the current and future possibilities of a bioarchaeology that can affect social change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24463