Some provocative thoughts!
On point 1 I tend to agree - although of course you have not mentioned
the elephant in the room in this case, that of ethnicity/race. Can we
have an archaeology/heritage that is blind to difference, in the sense
of its valuation of the "past". Can we celebrate diversity without
fomenting division? The questions of advocacy were ones which we
attempted to address in the introduction to the OUP Handbook - when and
where are we as archaeologists legitimated in being advocates for
certain groups and to what extent? Whilst we should, I think, be open
about our political engagement, how does this square with the
disinterested role of the academic?
On point 2 I'm not so sure. Isn't there a sense of the coincidental in
all associations between actions and place? The real question is if they
leave physical traces, and what if anything these physical traces tell
us? Are there, for example, physical remnants of the bombing to the
Admiral Duncan in Old Compton Street? What do such traces tell us about
the LGBT past and/or other pasts, and to what extent are they a
continuing part of a living heritage?
wrt intangible heritage, I'm tempted to wonder if this is not where
heritage and archaeology part company?
P G-B
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