Dear readers, you are invited to propose papers for inclusion in the TAG
2003 session described below. Suggestions
concerning themes around which the session might be structured are most
welcome.

with all best regards Stephanie Koerner and Andrew Gardner
--------
A session in the 2003 meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group TAG,
17-19 December, 2003, University of Wales, Lampeter,.

Time, Ethics, and the Historicity of Human Life-worlds

Organizers:
Stephanie Koerner (University of Manchester; [log in to unmask])
Andrew Gardner (Institute of Archaeology, UCL, [log in to unmask])


In his "Theses on the Philosophy of History" ([1940] 1992), Walter Benjamin
argued for change in relations between academia and human affairs centering
on critiques of historical meta-narratives, which render invisible violence
done to the variability of human conditions of possibility. In Benjamin's
([1940] 1992: 252-253), view, the most difficult challenge was the notion
of homogeneous empty time. There are good reasons to hold this view. This
notion is crucial for (a) the equation reality with epistemic necessity,
(b) dualist paradigms for socio-cultural change, and (c) the division of
all spacio-temporal scales between categories that conform with its modes
of dichotomising universals and particulars. In these connections, it
underwrites, for instance, (a) the reduction of cultural variability to
imaginary measures of evolutionary progress, (b) a number of problematical
current core-periphery models of globalization, and (c) the reduction of
human agency to images of "timeless, featureless, interchangeable and
atomistic individuals, untethered to time or space" (cf. Gero 200: 38).
        Time is a fundamental ontic construct. Ontologies concern 'being', how the
sorts of things that exit came to be, and why these rather than other sorts
of things exist. Since antiquity, the most influential ontologies have
stretched between two opposing poles two opposing poles, with absolute
unity and permanence, on one side, and disunity (pure flux), Questions
about change (in particular, historical change) are rendered problematical
by this dichotomy. The most influential approach has been that put forward
by Aristotle [384-322 BC] in the Metaphysics ([1908] 1960), which centers
on the question: If something can be said to be subject to change, what is
the essence of that something?  He offered three alternative answers: (1)
the unchanging aspect, (2) the changing aspect, and (3) both, that is, the
interaction of changing and unchanging aspects. In the essentialist
ontologies the important answer is (1), and the others have to be reducible
to it.
        Focusing on the unchanging essence of things leads to the disregard of
questions about how things come into being, and the reduction of ontology's
task to classification. It means that ontology is supposed to focus on
questions like: What (underlying substances) makes particular items what
they are? What distinguishes them from one another? What timeless
substances distinguish different categories of entities?  It demands that
answers to these questions add up to universally valid generalizations
about the range of categories in terms of which all things existing at all
times can be classified (McGuire and Tushanska 2001: 45-47). And it demands
the division of all spatial and temporal scales into categories that
conform with its modes of dichotomising universals and particulars.
        These modes of reasoning have underwritten the most influential 19th and
20th century theories about the conditions of historical (and
archaeological knowledge) knowledge and related paradigms for human agency
and historical change. In these connections they impact upon an
extraordinary range of approaches to the question: "If agency is important
for understanding particular human activities, must it be included
explanations of long-term socio-cultural change?" (cf. Dobres and Robb
eds., 2000: 11-13).

Time, many critics of meta-narratives argued, ties being to power. For
instance, concerning the concept of an archae Jacque Derrida wrote the
following.

"Let us not begin at the beginning or even the archive....  But rather at
the word 'archive' ---and with the archive of so familiar a word.  Archae,
we recall, names at once a commencement and the commandment. This name
apparently co-ordinates two principles in one: the principle according to
nature or history, there where things commence---physical, historical, or
ontological principle---but also the principle according to the law, there
where men and gods command, there where authority, social order are
exercised. In this place from which order is given---nomological
principle.... There, we said, and in this place.  How are we to think of
there?  And this taking place or this having a place of the archae?.....
We have there two orders of order: sequential and jussive. From this point
on, a series of cleavages will incessantly divide every atom of our
lexicon" (Derrida 1995 Archive Fever, pp. 1 2).

In the 1980's archaeologists began to engage in discussions of the
relevance of contemporary social constructionist perspectives on time to
the field. Since then an extraordinary range of changes have taken place,
for instance, in (a) approaches to the conditions of archaeological
knowledge; (b) the use of analogy; (c) the impacts of practice on theory;
(d) interpretive categories relating, especially, to the critique of
subject-object, nature-culture, individual-society, mind-body, Western -
Non-Western, science - values, epistemology - ontology; (e) spatial and
temporal analytic scales; (f) and human agency and historical processes;
(g) the status of ethics in archaeological epistemic and ontic premises;
and (h) the public roles of archaeology (Koerner 2003).  Importantly, there
is now considerable agreement that archaeological treatments of time are
not simply an academic matter, but pose complex sociopolitical and ethical
issues.  Perhaps not surprisingly a number of researchers have taken up
serious discussion of the fields relevance to the challenges the critique
of meta-narrative face in an 'age of globalization' (cf.
        This session aims to provide a context for reopening discussion of
approaches to time in light of the above mentioned (and other suggested)
developments and issues. The session may provide a context for
re-evaluating archaeology's commitment to exploiting 'time-depth' by
exploring the range of 'times' humans construct, and the social, political
and ethical implications of their use.
        We hope that the session will initiate lively discussion, for instance, of
change in perspectives on the ontic and epistemic significance of field
practice; a range of current sources of theoretical insights; the changing
public roles of archaeology.

References

Aristotle 1941 The Basic Works of Aristotle, trans. by B. Jowett and R.
McKeon (ed). London: Oxford University Press.

Benjamin, W. Theses on the Philosophy of History, in the collection edited
by H. Arendt, Illuminations. London: Fontana Press, 245-255.

Derrida, J. 1996. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, A. Erick (tr.).
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Koerner, S. forthcoming 2003. Agency and Views Beyond Meta-Narratives that
Privatise Ethics and Globalize Indifference, in Gardner, A. (ed.). London,
UCL.

Prazniak, R. and Dirlik, A. (eds.) 2001. Politics and Place in an Age of
Globalization. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 3-13.