Identity/Crisis

Joffe, Alexander H.

doi:10.1017/s1380203803001090

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…What I have endeavoured to emphasize here is how ‘outlaws’ were bricolages of affects and sensibilities, and so archaeologists – as ‘intellectual bricoleurs ’ (Dawdy 2005, 153) – are well suited to exploring the theoretical and historical directions that these figures may lead us in (cf. Joffe 2003).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In praise of outlaws

King¹

2018

Arch. Dial.

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Abstract‘Outlaw’ is not a common category of archaeological thought but it is perhaps more useful than meets the eye. ‘Outlaws’ are typically viewed as contingent on legal and capitalist systems; they are, I suggest, also material, affective phenomena that draw our attention to how transgression, dissent and disorder are conceived through archaeological thinking. Here, I outline some ways in which ‘outlaw’ figures are ‘good to think with’, particularly for historical and colonial contexts but also for broader, more global frontier situations. Through three sketches of archetypal ‘outlaws’ in southern Africa's recent past, I consider where these disruptive figures draw attention to how mobility, violence, rebellion and state imagination (and the limits thereof) have been imagined through material misbehaviours.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In praise of outlaws

King¹

2018

Arch. Dial.

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“…However, the term is used by numerous disciplines, as the name of prestigious academic departments (e.g., Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago), and in journal titles (e.g., Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Near Eastern Archaeology, Bioarchaeology of the Near East ); thus, for continuity of reference it will be employed throughout this article. Many academics would argue it is preferable to “Biblical archaeology,” which has fallen out of favor given its limited focus on a particular period of history, concentration on specific faith traditions, and past reliance on migration and unidirectional diffusion as mechanisms of cultural transmission, dated paradigms in anthropological archaeology (Joffe, ; Levy, ).…”

Section: Near Eastern Bioarchaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioarchaeology in the ancientNearEast: Challenges and future directions for the southern Levant

Sheridan

2017

American J Phys Anthropol

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The synthesis of biological anthropology, archaeology, and social theory provides a bioarchaeological model to reconstruct nuanced aspects of demography, diet, disease, death, daily activities, and biodistance, even in the absence of discrete burials. Numerous skeletal assemblages in the southern Levant are composed of mixed and fragmented bones resulting from generational use of cemeteries, mass burial, and additional communal burial practices. Others become commingled due to taphonomic processes such as flooding, geological events, or human mediated mechanisms like looting, improper excavation, and poor curation. Such collections require one to ask broader questions of human adaptability, exercise a holistic approach, use broad demographic categories, and remain cognizant of the limitations posed by fragmentation. Expanded research questions and ethical considerations, the use of centralized databases and understudied collections, as well as the application of social media, citizen science, and crowd sourcing provide new tools for bioarchaeological analyses of the many commingled ancient Near Eastern collections in the southern Levant.

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“…At one level, this seeming dismissal of self-ascription can legitimately be read as a rejection of the critical issues and methodologies derived from the social sciences that have sought to occupy centre stage within biblical studies since the 1970s (Whitelam 2000b: 8-9). At another level, however, it translates as a further iteration of ‘the conceit that recasts the past in terms familiar, or advantageous, to us’ (Joffe 2003: 88). Of course, a desire for such ‘commonality’ is an intrinsic and distinctive feature of the human sciences (Todorov 1993: x) and one that, in a world of radical indeterminacy, provides an emotional sense of security, of familiarity, and of knowledge.…”

Section: Back To the Things Themselvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merneptah’s ‘Israel’ and the Absence of Origins in Biblical Scholarship

Nestor

2015

Currents in Biblical Research

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This article examines the Merneptah Stele and its role in recent efforts to reconstruct Israelite history and identity. Though necessarily concerned with the issues of translation and location as they relate to the entity named in the stele, this review is dominated by an assessment of the various ways in which biblical scholarship has related to this singular reference. To that end, issues of theory and method, both archaeological and anthropological, are prioritized as the review appraises the various attempts to isolate this entity as the Archimedean point of Israelite historical and ethnic development. Though certainly critical of what it perceives as the sterile reproduction of long-held beliefs, it is a review that, in its appeal to the work of Pierre Bourdieu, looks to identify prospects for further study of the stele, rather than foreclose the very questions that it raises.

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Identity/Crisis

Cited by 8 publications

References 19 publications

In praise of outlaws

In praise of outlaws

Bioarchaeology in the ancientNearEast: Challenges and future directions for the southern Levant

Merneptah’s ‘Israel’ and the Absence of Origins in Biblical Scholarship

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