Backdirt as a Means of Deconstruction of Archaeological Procedure: The Case Study of Tel Burnat, The Occupied Palestinian Territories

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper will examine the case study of Tel Burnat, located to the north of Nablus in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, to demonstrate how the concept of backdirt may be employed to deconstruct the interrelation between academic archaeological discourse and public archaeological discourse in the neoliberal era. Building upon the reconfiguration of the concept of backdirt by Carvalho (this issue) and Rivera Prince and Morales (this issue), it is my claim that backdirt serves as a subversive component in archaeological procedure. As such, it invites a critical examination of how different components of archaeological procedure attribute different degrees of importance to the same archaeological findings.