Forum: Populism, Identity Politics, and the Archaeology of Europe

Abstract

While political engagement in archaeology is nothing new—and amongst others includes a long history of feminist scholarship (e.g. Conkey, Reference Conkey2002), strategies for democratization (e.g. recently Milek, Reference Milek2018; Nilsson Stutz, Reference Nilsson Stutz2018), and calls for a greater relevance of archaeology in environmental and social debates (e.g. Kiddey, Reference Kiddey2017; Kohler & Rockman, Reference Kohler and Rockman2020)—here we are particularly concerned with the very current problem of an ever more vocal and pervasive populist debate that threatens the discursive foundations on which rational argument is possible. How should we respond? How can we deal with the sometimes uncomfortable limelight that is increasingly being trained on our discipline? What can be done when the public's expectations, or the use of the past by various actors, run counter to our own convictions (and/or what can be reasonably inferred from the available data)? There are no easy answers to these questions, but our authors go some way towards demonstrating the variety of the problem across different archaeological fields and in various European regions. While this is first and foremost a call for greater engagement and debate across the discipline, we would argue that a concerted response to such developments entails a two-pronged approach that begins both at a high level of generality and at the level of daily working routines. Show more