Dissertation Research: Archaeology and Artifacts: Unearthing Identity

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract This project focuses on the scientific and cultural production of knowledge at archaeological sites through an ethnography of archaeologists working in Pompeii, Italy. The exacting "scientific" nature of archaeology has played a pivotal role in the construction of cultural and national identities. This project seeks to understand the micro-processes by which artifacts become scientific objects and how, as scientific objects, artifacts become objects of signification: of "Italian-ness", "European-ness" and finally "World Heritage". Italy is a country fraught with a continual crisis of cultural and/or national identity but the narrative of a shared Roman ancestry became important in attempts to generate "Italian-ness". Historically archaeology helped establish and legitimize this "common" identity. Intellectual Merits The intellectual merit of the proposed research is to examine how archaeology is currently being enrolled in the project of identity formation. As one of the most important sites in Italy, Pompeii offers the best opportunity to examine these processes at work. In 1997 Pompeii was "inscribed" by UNESCO and designated a "World Heritage" site. As such it is a particularly interesting place to potentially locate the formation of a new yet not fully defined European or world identity. This project not solely concerns the uses that archaeology has been put to in the social and political arena, but also with the practice of archaeology itself and how these practices construct scientific objects that are then employed to make larger truth claims. While general conclusions have been offered as to the work of archaeology as a nation-building tool, this project seeks to understand how archaeology as science is a "sign producing" activity and exactly how it is that the archaeological sign comes into being and circulates to produce narratives of heritage, identity and nation. Broader Impacts UNESCO's declaration of Pompeii as a "World Heritage" site points to the broader impacts of this study. Archaeological artifacts have long been caught up in important and contentious policy debates over the disposition of such objects: not just who owns them, but who can use them for proprietary and narrative projects. This study will contribute to those policy debates, as well as the broader discussion in policy circles in Europe: the Council of Europe explicitly stated in its Forward Planning Project of 2001 that archaeological heritage would be used to "Europeanize" Europe. This project will thus have broader impacts in addressing the policy and scientific debate about the interface between the science and the politics of archaeology in the new Europe. Finally, Italy has recently passed legislation allowing the privatization of Pompeii. How can privatization be reconciled with the larger collective projects of UNESCO and the Council of Europe (which themselves may be at odds)? The data collected through the proposed research will be useful to scholars and policy makers attempting to navigate this increasingly fraught legal and proprietary terrain. This award is being co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering