Archaeology. A career in ruins

Extract

I find myself largely in sympathy with what Rodney Harrison is trying to do. In applying an archaeological sensibility to the contemporary world, it becomes increasingly clear that the habitual tropes of archaeological practice either do not work, or need to be rethought and reconfigured. Equally, I think that this reassessment of archaeological theory and methodology can have a wider epistemological value for the discipline in general. The tropes of ruin and excavation are particularly salient in this context, in that they do not entirely work in the understanding of the contemporary. However, there are points at which I diverge from Harrison, particularly with respect to what we mean by modernity, and especially in terms of the limitations of his concern with surfaces.