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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
“Rather, the two (the cartographer and the native elder) are differently engaged in imaginative projects of practically and discursively realizing a complexly textured reality. In each case, the location has been invested with significance, drawn into other networks of meaning, and articulated within the logic of a culturally distinctive way of knowing.” Whitridge 2004, p. 217
In our discussion last week I was struck by the impact that the variety of different imaginary worlds or Dreamings can have on how we conduct and write about research as archaeologists. The process of archaeology is a place-making process, but only for the archaeologist and those who have yet to encounter the place. In this sense we are similar to the Aboriginal Australians in that, when we come to a place, it already has a name and a story that fits within some type of Dreaming. The archaeological act of place-making serves to help us understand how a place works within our own, Western idea of the Dreaming. This has most often meant that we take part in one side of the process that Whitridge describes in the above quotation. Studies by geographers, paleobotanists, geomorphologists and other ‘experts’ are conducted and then synthesized to integrate the place within our Dreaming, but the other Dreamings that are a part of others’ understanding of the place are omitted. Whitridge does a good job of showing that these multiple points of view equally legitimate in conceptualizing a place, but to gain a full understanding of the palimpsest of the place, these narratives need to be melded together. Instead of conducting research to only come up with the two Dreamings for, let us say the Aboriginal Australians and the Western inhabitants or researchers, we should be striving to facilitate dialogue between the two conceptions of the world. While this may be in some ways a rehashing of a colonial situation to obtain a better outcome from the interactions of people and to relieve post-colonial, if we want these groups of people to be able to work together they must have an understanding of each other’s own Dreamings.