Introduction: The Intersections of Archaeology and Postcolonial Studies

Abstract

There has been a lag in the discussion and incoproation of postcolonial ideas in archaeology; the present volume of which this chapter is an introduction, serves to elleviate this lack. Postcolonilism is defined broadly as that which is "questioning the knowledge about and the representation of colonized "Others" that has been produced in colonial and imperial contexts" (2). Archaeology can incoporate postcolonial theory in three contexts: 1) past episodes of colonial activity 2) archaeology's role in the construction and challenging of colonial discourses 3) guiding ethical practice (4). The concept of hybridity has been an increasingly important part of framing these disuccssions in temrs of material culture patterns (5-6). Nevertheless, postcolonialism has its critics. For one thing, it tends to "homogenize colonial encounters" (10). It has also focussed almost entirely on European colonial encounters (11). For antoher, postcolonialism, as a western epistemological construct, may in fact be an unwitting tool of neocolonialist efforts to define and (eventually) subjugate the Third World (12, cf. McGhee). This volume, then, seeks to address these problems and potentialities in archaeology.