Objects, images and texts: Archaeology and violence

Abstract

Today, monuments and archaeological sites are often specific targets for violence. But rather than casting this as either collateral damage or the result of ignorance and incivility, it can be argued that the material world, in all its widely varied forms, is enmeshed in conflict and violence. This can be better understood in terms of the haptic significance of objects caught up in extreme and traumatic circumstances. The point of departure for this paper is W.J.T. Mitchell’s concept of the “traumatic gap” that emerges as “the unrepresentable space between words and images”. I show that where the normative breaks down, the haptic qualities of media can assume far greater significance. Books and pictures become objects as well as semiotic registers and graphic representations. Understanding this – the “X” that Mitchell uses to designate the emptiness between the normal meanings of words and images – requires and enables an archaeology of violence. Taking a cue from Mitchell’s formulation, I show how the particular qualities of this space can be expressed in a new algorithm, “image ←→ object ←→ text”. This space – Mitchell’s “presence of an absence” – can only be filled by things that are neither images nor texts in their conventional sense. This is demonstrated by the extreme of the torture cell, where the most mundane of everyday objects become both normalized in the careful, systematic records of the military operative, and terrifying in the experience of the prisoner. Here, the figure of the Hooded Man, leaked from the clandestine archive of Abu Ghraib, serves as an emblem for the horror of contemporary violence; both executioner and victim, torturer and prisoner, both the Christ-like posture of the saviour and the horror of beheading.

Anthropological Archaeology in 2016: Cooperation and Collaborations in Archaeological Research and Practice

“…Interestingly, however, a focus on the affective aspects of collaboration, sharing, and cooperation is largely absent from this recent archaeological interest in experience and emotion in the past (Allmond ; Arjona ; Ceasar ; Hall ; Hegmon ; Reilly ). The authors of many of these studies point to the impossibility of identifying the exact emotional and subjective state of a long‐gone individual, and instead focus on the practices, material conditions, and contexts that shaped and were shaped by human experiences and emotions, ranging from the reconstruction of the conditions of human experience to the affective and embodied nature of particular historical circumstances, identities, and materialities.…”

“…Many studies of human experience focus on suffering and isolation (Hegmon ; Martin and Harrod ), such as those of captives and slaves (Cameron ; Trimble ), as well as detention, imprisonment, and forced labor (Allmond ; Blin ; Chopelain ; Hall ; Pollock and Bernbeck ; Redon ; Vermard, Adam, and Panisset ). For instance, in a study of a Roman slave collar, Jennifer Trimble () explores not only the painful, debilitating experiences of the slave who would have worn such a metal collar labeled with a written ownership tag but also the material, textual, and visual dimensions of Roman slave owners’ experiences in possessing and dominating another human, and the perspective of viewers and readers who would have experienced the collar as an “audience.” This focus on human suffering, violence, and isolation undoubtedly stems from the fact that they are heightened emotions of the human condition, even if there is recognition that the capturing of such emotions through image or text “is deeply deficient, as it is nothing but a mediated version of a more fundamental encounter with the world” (Pollock and Bernbeck , 34).…”

“…; Zorich ). As Martin Hall argues, it is the subjective memory, experience, and imagination from where “an archaeology of violence is positioned against the relentlessness of reincorporation into objective normality; against the nonchalant acceptance of the violence of colonization; against the banality of evil, against the inevitability that the subjective experience of violence will be calibrated into a systematic ontology and taken as expected for the future” (, 90–91). In this sense, cultural heritage spaces and objects sit at the intersections of subjective and objective experiences, deriving from and provoking emotion while also objectifying historical moments, peoples, and conflicts.…”

“…Such a focus is particularly salient given what has become a burgeoning archaeological preoccupation with warfare, violence, conflict, and crisis (Arkush and Stanish ; Bourget ; Burdick ; Burley ; Eerkens et al. ; Hall ; Knapp ; Wijnen, Schute, and Kok ). As this review highlights, however, appearances are not always what they seem, and the practices of collaboration, cooperation, and the making of consensus are not always straightforward or one‐dimensional.…”

La sostenibilidad del patrimonio en la formación de los futuros docentes de Educación Primaria: compromiso y práctica futura

“…Una apuesta decidida por una educación patrimonial que fomente actitudes sociales positivas que confronten aspectos como la destrucción o vandalización de los patrimonios. En este sentido, los estudios consultados hasta la fecha recogen la necesidad de promover una educación ético-cívica de calidad en torno al patrimonio que logre la sensibilización, el conocimiento de la cultura, su valorización y el despertar de un compromiso social que lo proteja ante cualquier acto destructivo (Bauer, 2020;Hall, 2016;Isakhan & Shahab, 2020;McAnany & Parks, 2012;Osborne, 2017). La globalización y el desarrollo demográfico (Menon & Varma, 2019), así como el distanciamiento social promovido desde la política, el rechazo y marginación de una parte de la cultura y/o grupo étnico (McAnany & Parks, 2012) o el propio interés social por el patrimonio que lo masifica y amenaza en su conservación (Parga-Dans et al, 2020), son causas que pueden poner en jaque la sostenibilidad del patrimonio, por lo que la educación patrimonial desempeña un papel fundamental para la sensibilización ciudadana, bien desde las aulas de la educación obligatoria o desde la formación universitaria de futuros docentes.…”