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Archaeology and development: mutual accountability as an approach to public archaeology

Project Description
Contact Details
Funding
Project Publications

Project Description

The project involves working in various countries with grassroots communities fighting for the life of their communities, livelihoods, environment and cultural heritage against destructive development. It aims to:

investigate the impact of development on communities and their heritage with a view to drawing out the connections between their case and the case of archaeology against destruction and to support development which meets their needs
evaluate an approach to community archaeology based on mutual accountability

This is a long-term project first initiated in the 1990s regarding problems in heritage tourism development in the Boyne valley in Ireland. The main work since 2000 has been in southeast Turkey with Kurdish communities opposing the GAP development project and the Ilisu dam. More recently, we conducted fieldwork in the Oaxaca region of Mexico where Indigenous people fight the loss of their communal culture and heritage via the Plan Puebla Panama development project. In each country a number of community organisations have worked with us. The high profile of the project has resulted in sometimes being asked for information or advice by individuals or community organisations in different countries and the experience of this interchange contributes to the project’s direction. In 2008 at the request of community groups, experience from this work was brought to bear in public debate on the issue of Tara and the M3 motorway in Ireland.

Figure 1: Remains of a 12 ^th century bridge on the route of the Silk Road across the Tigris at Hasankeyf, at risk from the Ilisu dam. Photo: M. Ronayne

The focus is on evidence-based research involving practical work over several years with many communities and their organisations. The priority is work with grassroots women, children and men in communities and their organisations although some work has also been completed with NGOs and via submissions to governments. It has contributed to several campaigns, those directly relating to the developments investigated by this research and others which have been able to make use of this work. It has also contributed to the professional debate on methodology in the growing area of community archaeology and among communities themselves regarding what is needed from professionals. This has been one result of ongoing work to develop and evaluate an approach based on mutual accountability between professionals and communities.

The work highlights and aims to support the social and economic recognition of unremunerated work mainly of women ensuring the survival and defense of families, communities, culture and heritage. As chief carers for families and communities women may bear the heaviest brunt of poor planning and development and may therefore be most able to spell out clearly the extent of the threat to culture. This work aims to advance international debates within the profession and in the wider community regarding gender in the area of community archaeology and more widely, the value of caring work past and present.

Figure 2: Work in advance of the M3 motorway, routed through Tara’s landscape despite considerable public and archaeological opposition

A variety of tools and methods have been applied including reports, submissions, EIA reviews, media work, field surveys, interviews, community meetings. It is taken for granted that there be wide public dissemination of information and results and this has been achieved through many public lectures and community meetings, media articles, radio programmes and TV, press releases, reports, websites and non-academic publications and leaflets.

One of the objectives is to advance the growing perspective within the profession that our role is not confined to excavation and survey. The work does not rule out the use of these skills but as archaeologists increasingly work with communities, we use a variety of techniques from interviews to public advocacy to fulfil our mandate to protect and defend cultural heritage and behave ethically towards communities whose heritage we are investigating and aim to protect. In this way we hope to contribute to the advancement of the research agenda for Public Archaeology, not only as a specific sub-discipline but increasingly as an approach common across many branches of the profession.

Figure 3: Women’s meeting to discuss defence of their community and cultural heritage in Oaxaca, Mexico. Photo: Crossroads collective.

The comparative approach across countries and regions, across race and ethnicity, is deliberate and aims to learn lessons from one case for another and to investigate how communities view development and what role they want professionals to undertake in that process. This work may be described as cross-disciplinary, marrying archaeology with anthropology, geography, oral history and sociology and even heritage studies. While I value inter-disciplinary work and make use of a wide range of methods and information, my view is that this work is best described as archaeology for the 21 ^st century, conscious of itself as a profession with recognised ethics and standards, with obligations and responsibilities not only to past societies and the remains they left behind but also to people in the present who are the inheritors of that culture.

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Contact Details

Maggie Ronayne ( Profile)
Department of Archaeology
School of Geography and Archaeology
NUI Galway

Tel: +353 (0)91 493701
maggie.ronaynenuigalway.ie

Funding

NUI Galway Grant In Aid of Publications 2006

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Project Publications

Forthcoming

2010. The Cultural and Environmental Impact of Large Dams in Turkey (Turkish language), BGST press: Istanbul.

Selected Publications

2009. Commitment, Objectivity and Accountability to Communities: Priorities for 21 ^st Century Archaeology. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 10 (4), 367-381. Published by Maney at www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney. ( Article in PDF Format - 101.27KB)
2008. The State We're In on the Eve of World Archaeological Congess (WAC) 6: Archaeology in Ireland vs Corporate Takeover. Public Archaeology 7 (2), 114-129. ( Article in PDF Format - 248KB) (Published online at www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney).
2008. Ilýsu Barajý: Barbarlýk Ýçin Bir Anýt ^. Türkiye’nin Kürt Bölgesindeki Ilýsu Barajý Ýçin Hazýrlanan Çevresel Etki Deðerlendirmesi Raporu Güncellemesi’nin Bir Deðerlendirmesi. Translated by Ayþan Sönmez and published by BGST press online.
2007. The culture of caring and its destruction in the Middle East: women¹s work, water, war and archaeology. In Y. Hamilakis and P. Duke (eds), Archaeology and Capitalism. From ethics to politics, 247-265. One World Archaeology Left Coast Press, California.
2006. Archaeology against cultural destruction: the case of the Ilisu dam in the Kurdish region of Turkey. Public Archaeology 5, 223-236.
2006. The Ilisu Dam: A Monument to Barbarism. Review of the Environmental Impact Assessment Report Update for the Ilisu Dam in the Kurdish Region of Turkey (in consultation with grassroots communities from the reservoir area and the Global Women’s Strike). ( Report in PDF Format - 965KB).
2005. The Cultural and Environmental Impact of Large Dams in Southeast Turkey. London: National University of Ireland, Galway and Kurdish Human Rights Project. 166pp. ( Book in PDF Format - 2.39MB) .
2002. The Ilisu Dam: Displacement of Communities and Destruction of Culture. London: National University of Ireland, Galway and Kurdish Human Rights Project. 211 pp.
2002. The Ilisu Dam Environmental Impact Assessment Report: Review and Critique. Public Archaeology 2, No. 2, 101-116 (with W.H. Kitchen).
2002. Large Dam Campaigns Update. World Archaeological Bulletin 16, 37-49.
2002. Cultural Impacts: Preliminary Suggestions for an Assessment Framework. In N. Hildyard, H. Griffiths, Le Verger, M. and Godinot, S. Damning Indictment: How the Yusufeli Dam Violates International Standards and People's Rights. London and Paris: Kurdish Human Rights Project, Les Amis de la Terre, France Libertés, Friends of the Earth (UK), The Corner House, Ilisu Dam Campaign, 41-43.
2002. Potential Cultural Impacts of the Yusufeli Dam. In N. Hildyard, H. Griffiths, Le Verger, M. and Godinot, S. A Report by an International Fact-Finding Mission on the Yusufeli Dam in Turkey, published by Friends of the Earth.
2001. The Ilisu Dam Environmental Impact Assessment Report: Review and Critique. Submission to UK government in September 2001 and published at, www.nuigalway.ie/archaeology (with W.H. Kitchen).
2001. The Ilisu Dam in Southeast Turkey: Archaeology at Risk. Antiquity 75, 37-38 (with W.H. Kitchen).
2001. The Ilisu Dam Project in Southeast Turkey. World Archaeological Bulletin 13, 17-33.
2001. The Political Economy of Landscape: Conflict and Value in a Prehistoric Landscape in Ireland. In B. Bender and M. Winer (eds.), Contested Landscapes: Movement, Exile and Place, 149-164. Oxford and New York: Berg.
2000. Sustainable Stonehenge: Sustainable for What? Rescue News 80, 5-6.
2000. The Ilisu Dam Project in Southern Turkey. World Archaeological Bulletin 12, 7-12.

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Department of Archaeology
National University of Ireland, Galway,
University Road, Galway, Ireland.
Phone: +353 (0) 91 492167 , Fax: +353 (0) 91 525700, E-mail Archaeology
This page was last updated Monday, January 25, 2010