Theorising the digital: A call to action for the archaeological community

Sara Perry*, James Stuart Taylor

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Although archaeologists are increasingly critically engaged in their deployment of computational approaches, those who label themselves as 'digital archaeologists' are typically not recognised for their philosophical contributions to the discipline and are rarely positioned at the forefront of general disciplinary theorising. Indeed, where digital archaeology does feature in volumes on archaeological theory, it often amounts to little more than a footnote. This is in spite of the fact that digital archaeologists have been driving change in archaeology for more than a half-century now. Notwithstanding the support of major international organisations and widespread commitment to key social projects (e.g. open access, 'slowness', neoliberal critique, emancipation), digital archaeologists still do not seem to have the rubrics in place to force larger theoretical shifts in the discipline. We aim here, then, to begin identifying the gaps and tensions which hamper our capacities to write contemporary and future archaeological theory. .

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCAA2016
Subtitle of host publicationOceans of Data Proceedings of the 44th Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology
PublisherArchaeopress
Pages11-22
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781784917302
ISBN (Print)9781784917319
Publication statusPublished - 31 Dec 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Archaeopress and the authors 2018. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Critique
  • Digital archaeology
  • Practice
  • Reflexivity
  • Theory

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