Knowledges in Disciplines and Cities: An Essay on Relations Between Archaeology and Social Sciences

Abstract

In this chapter the author explores the relations between academic and practical knowledges. Using the knowledge generated in and through cities as the example of the latter, it is shown how the social science and archaeology academic disciplines have undervalued the importance of this urban knowledge due to their intellectual origins in the nineteenth century. In the social sciences this has produced a knowledge framework that is very state-centric; in archaeology the knowledge framework is progress/evolution based. The result is that these conventional academic positions create knowledges that neglect the practical knowledge of cities. This is illustrated substantively through new interpretations of the origins of, and relations between, cities, states, and agriculture.