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Archaeology, Heritage, and Reactionary Populism

Name: Archaeology, Heritage, and Reactionary Populism
Author: Randall H. McGuire
ISBN: 9780813080994

Edited by Randall H. McGuire and Alfredo González-Ruibal

Published by: University Press of Florida

Series: Cultural Heritage Studies

This volume explores how populist movements and politics present new challenges to public archaeologists, using global examples to propose practical forms of community engagement amid increasing polarization and extremism.

288 Pages6.12 × 9.2533 b/w illus., notes, references, index

Paperback
9780813080994
Published: April 22, 2025

$35.00

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Hardcover
9780813079332
Published: April 22, 2025

$110.00

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EPUB
9780813073767
Published: April 22, 2025

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Description
Authors
Praise
Table of Contents

A timely collection on the role of public archaeology in an era of reactionary populism

Reactionary populism, seen in radical anti-intellectual movements around the globe, is changing how politics are practiced and how people view themselves and others. Amid increasing polarization and extremism, the social role of archaeology is more relevant but also more difficult. This volume explores how populist politics present new challenges to public archaeologists in North America, South America, and Europe.

Archaeology, Heritage, and Reactionary Populism shows that the field of community archaeology must do more to address how these movements can distort history. Contributors demonstrate why researchers and heritage managers should be aware of the interests their work advances, discuss the ethics of working with communities that promote extreme populist values, and examine the ways governments affect heritage regulations. Acknowledging that community archaeology is often very localized, they argue that it can and should connect with and inform broader historical narratives.

Written by practitioners from different subfields of public archaeology, this collection problematizes commonly held assumptions about community, the public, and political action. At the same time, it moves beyond critique to propose practical forms of engagement. This reflective and critical approach will help archaeologists mobilize their work to engage with the growing influence of reactionary populism.

Randall H. McGuire, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at Binghamton University, is the author of Archaeology as Political Action. Alfredo González-Ruibal, senior researcher with the Institute of Heritage Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council, is the author of An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era.

“Grapples with the questions of whether and how the interests, values, objectives, practices, and knowledge produced through community-based archaeology align and misalign with individuals and social groups who embrace populist values.”—Siobhan Hart, author of Colonialism, Community, and Heritage in Native New England
“Brings together some of the most exciting archaeologists currently working to build a decolonized, just archaeology, revealing how complicated it really is to do archaeology for ‘the community.’ These authors expand on a theme that plagues all of us who do public outreach: whose stories are we privileging and how might our work be co-opted in ways we would not prefer or anticipate? Anyone interested in community or public archaeology should engage with this topic.”—Allison Mickel, author of Why Those Who Shovel Are Silent: A History of Local Archaeological Knowledge and Labor

List of Figures

Series Foreword

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Archaeology and the Challenge of Populism
Alfredo González-Ruibal and Randall H. McGuire

Part I: Archaeology and Communities on a National Level

Chapter 2. Nation, Empire, and Reactionary Populism: An Archaeological Critique
Alfredo González-Ruibal

Chapter 3. Constellations of Co-Resistance: Taking Power and Making Power in American Archaeology
Lindsay Martel Montgomery

Chapter 4. Heritage, Archaeology, and Local Communities in Times of Reactionary Populism: Learnings from Brazil
Cristóbal Gnecco

Part II: Long-Term Archaeological Studies of Contemporary Communities

Chapter 5. Reality Bites: The Insufferable Lightness of Being a Community Archaeologist
Xurxo Ayán Vila

Chapter 6. Solidarity, the Craft of Archaeology, and Reactionary Populism
Randall H. McGuire

Part III: The Archaeology of Repression and Negative Heritage

Chapter 7. Archaeology as Deterritorialized Community: Using Cultural Heritage Methods to Challenge Reactionary Populism in the Made in Migration Project (2018–2022)
Rachael Kiddey

Chapter 8. Conducting Community Archaeology in Ireland: Working with Marginalized and Vulnerable Communities
Laura McAtackney

Chapter 9. Contending with Colonial Heritage as a Transnational Activist Network: The Museum of British Colonialism
Gabriel Moshenska, Anthony Maina, Hannah McLean, Andrea Potts, Beth Rebisz, and Chao Tayiana Maina

Part IV: Comparing and Contrasting Archaeology’s Study of Past Societies with the Study of Contemporary Material Worlds

Chapter 10. Ancient Chaco, Historic Texas: A Self-Reflexive Tale
Ruth M. Van Dyke

Chapter 11. Hurtful Heritage: Materializing a Past to Sediment/Unsettle Exclusionary Practices
Patricia A. McAnany

Chapter 12. Archaeology against Right-Wing Extremism: Lessons from a Nazi Terror Site
Reinhard Bernbeck

Chapter 13. Commentary
Claudia Theune

List of Contributors

Index

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

Archaeology, Heritage, and Reactionary Populism

Archaeology, Heritage, and Reactionary Populism

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