Hi John and all (why not let others comment on my comments too)

congrats to getting this project funded! As I am about to leave for
holidays here are a few quick comments:

1. Seven days of fieldwork for all the recording and the interviews? I
cannot possibly imagine that this is enough as surely you will need
considerable (social) time in order to find the right people and the
best occasion to talk to them? Also, extra time is needed to visit and
revisit all the sites. To me, the quality of any such project would be
directly dependent on the kind of detail and sophistication you can only
get at through a prolonged stay on site... Maybe that's because I read
too much ethnology.

2. Psychoanalytical practices and theory are part of your methodology? I
like the idea but am not really clear about what that actually means in
practice. Are you taking a psychoanalyst along to the interviews or to
do some of the recording of the material culture? Precisely which
aspects of psychoanalytical theory (beyond its fairly general
metaphorical references to archaeology) are you going to apply in your
project? If it's indeed the significance of the archaeological metaphor
that attracts you to psychoanalysis, why re-import that from
psychoanalysis if you can take it straight from your own subject of
archaeology?

3. What I miss in some of recent work within the field of 'contemporary
archaeology' is the distinctively archaeological angle and perspective.
I do not think that it is enough to simply record 'things', as many
other disciplines can do that / have done that too and not necessarily
worse (art historians, historians, folklorists, anthropologists, human
geographers etc). Nor do I think that archaeologists can somehow read
more out of 'things' than others who put their mind to it. 
To me, archaeology is about a set of key metaphors, among which are
prominently metaphors of (1) the adventurer/explorer, (2) the detective
of the past, and (3) the scientific priest who reveals profound insights
about civilisation, among others. I would foreground one or more
metaphors such as these and let them play themselves out on your site by
choosing a suitable approach and methodology. In (1) the explorative
adventure would be central, in (2) it's the seemingly insignificant,
tiny clues, and in (3) it's the huge possible lesson for humanity to be
gained from investigating a relatively small site.

This is what goes through my mind as I read your project description. I
realise it's your project, not mine, and so I shut up now (and go on
holidays!). Maybe on my return I will find an interesting discussion on
these things in my inbox! :-)

all the best and good luck

Cornelius



Cornelius Holtorf
Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm
http://members.chello.se/cornelius/
>>> "SCHOFIELD, John" <[log in to unmask]> 06/21/04
18:19 PM >>>
Dear all

Some of you may be interested in the following project, which has just
been granted funding by the British Academy. Any thoughts on the project
would be appreciated, esp from those that have done similar work.

http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Projects/projects.asp?ProjectID=78


John