Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology

by Ian J. McNiven, Lynette Russell

McNiven and Russell (both Australian indigenous studies, Monash U.) examine the overt, subtle, and insidious ways archeology has been complicit in appropriating the pasts of indigenous people, using Australia as a base of study and comparing conditions there with those of North America, Africa, and other regions. They argue that indigenous archeology has been largely, if not entirely colonial, and as such is controlled by negative representational tropes and historical misunderstanding of those same tropes. To support their assertions they describe the colonial culture of archeology, the invention of prehistory through progressivism, the misrepresentation of aboriginal people as "living fossils," the use of migration and diffusion to impose control on the indigenous and of science to reinforce it, and the new means of appropriation, "shared history." They propose methods to develop a decolonized practice. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Michael Lever]

Admittedly my review is biased. I've turned page after page to find ideas and concepts that I've recently arrived at myself, set in print by the authors over a decade ago. I enjoyed the process of thinking things through to conclusions far more than if I had read these conclusions first. Nevertheless it is affirming to find these ideas expressed by others, in all the formal trappings of academic text. The two authors walk the walk and are known for their approaches to Aboriginal pasts which set Aboriginal ownership of their heritage as the starting point for any shared research. Concise yet not dense, the book is a great source of information on like minded students of the past.

[Jane]

This book was an assigned reading for my History of Archaeology class at uni.