Postcolonial archaeologies between discourse and practice

Abstract

As postcolonial theories have gradually but persistently gained more prominence in archaeology over the last decade or so, most attention has been directed towards critiques of contemporary academic and, to a lesser extent, popular representations of past colonial contexts. Much less effort has been spent on alternative and fresh interpretations of the colonial contexts in the past themselves. In this issue, however, the focus is firmly on ‘doing archaeology’ along postcolonial lines. That means either novel interpretations and perspectives on colonial situations in the past, whether distant or less so, or reflections on fieldwork and research in contemporary postcolonial contexts. In both cases, the underlying assumption is that postcolonial theories offer exciting perspectives for doing archaeology differently and it is the aim of this issue to explore these differences, both past and present.