Je kunt alleen vooruit roeien door achteruit te kijken. Pleidooi voor meer politiek in de archeologie en meer archeologie in de politiek

Abstract

You can only row forward by looking back. Our past is a complex story. It comprises the best and the worst, atrocities and liberations, grief and jubilation. Archaeology is indispensable for making reconstructions of that past, and knowing the past is vital for understanding the present and the future. “You row forward by looking back, and telling this history is part of helping people navigate toward the future,” Rebecca Solnit (2016) argues. Therefore, archaeology should play an important role in society. Although the role archaeology plays and can play is shaped by political decisions, archaeologists in the Netherlands are reluctant to engage in political decision making. The future of the past is too important to leave solely in the hands of politicians. Archaeology should play a more important role in society; therefore, archaeologists should speak up in the social and political debate.