[...]... Zealand In both cases, these scholars have offered alternatives to current practices and achieved some success in transforming the discipline, even though much remains to be done Less attention, however, has been given to issues of class within archaeology Archaeology as a discipline serves class interests and, as a profession or occupation, has its own class structure Archaeology has traditionally... it seems safer to remain aloof from politics and either ignore or deny the political nature of archaeology Better yet, they advocate removal of political bias” from our practice, thinking that this will make archaeology apolitical They are mistaken about this strategy, however, because attacking political bias in archaeology is itself a political act Just as the accusation of prejudice charges that... the world, and to take action in the world Since publishing that book I have worked to realize such praxis Archaeology as Political Action offers a sustained discussion of my efforts to do so using three archaeological projects First among these is an analysis of archaeology as a class-based endeavor that I undertook with Mark Walker Second, is an exploration of the Trincheras Tradition Project in... confront the fascism that remains in contemporary Spanish society and politics In Spain, scholars have fashioned an emancipatory praxis of archaeology to confront fascism This is a book about the praxis of archaeology It is my reflection on how to adapt the modern practice of archaeology to those who do archaeology, who want archaeology, and who are affected by archaeology In A Marxist Archaeology (McGuire... denying the political nature of archaeology does not make politics go away, just as accusing others of political bias does not make the accuser unbiased More important, such self-deception can lead to the very consequences that the apolitical archaeologist fears A “politically unbiased” archaeology poses three dangers These are triviality, complicity, and unexamined prejudice First is the danger of triviality... production of a book requires much work and lots of help Robin Barron and Heidi Kenyon of the Department of Anthropology at Binghamton University assisted me in too many ways to list Ann Hull drafted the three maps included herein I must also thank the Denver Public Library’s photo department for permission to publish three of the figures in chapter 5 It has been a pleasure to work with the University of California. .. been a middle-class practice that has served middle-class needs Reduced public funding for education and hypercompetition among contract firms undermines the craft of archaeology and replaces it with market principles of flexibility, competition, and profit The corrosion of fast capitalism has reached into both the academy and cultural resource management More and more, the discipline of archaeology depends... support of U.S interests (Casteñeda 1996:118) These examples warrant mention primarily because they are exceptions in the history of our discipline Even in these exceptional cases, however, archaeology primarily served as a stalking horse for political activities, rather than as a form of political action It made an effective stalking horse because of its obvious triviality Clearly archaeology is a weak... tourism 16 Politics Stonehenge was a locus of ideological struggle Political struggles over the past are first and foremost ideological, especially when their political nature is hidden or obscured The obvious triviality of archaeology for overt political action makes it a cloaked but significant weapon in struggles over the past Jordi Estévez, a colleague of mine in archaeology at the Universitat Autònoma... contrasted with dispassionate, objective science The dominant ideology of the United States tends to view politics as a phenomenon separable from other aspects of society, such as economics and culture Americans in general resist “making things political. ” This attitude contrasts strongly with the ideologies of European, Latin American, African, and Asian societies, which tend to see politics as an . Berkeley) University of California Press Editor: Naomi Schneider Archaeology as Political Action Randall H. McGuire UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley . Los Angeles . London University of California Press, . “Class Confrontations in Archaeology, ” Historical Archaeology 33, no. 1 (1999). University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2008 by. (paper : alk. paper) 1. Archaeology Political aspects. 2. Archaeology Political aspects— Case studies. 3. Archaeologists— Political activity. 4. Archaeology Social aspects. 5. Archaeology Philosophy.