According to the Democratic Model, everybody should be invited and indeed encouraged and enabled to develop their own enthusiasm and “grassroots” interest in archaeology. The only limits that apply are those relevant to all social practices in a democracy, and they are largely to do with the need to respect the needs and rights of others. Put simply, professional archaeologists ought to accept how mature adults prefer to depict both the past and archaeology. They do not serve as a special state police force dedicated to eradicate interpretations of both the past and archaeological practice that would be considered ”false” or ”inappropriate” by a jury of their peers. In addition to the occupations professional archaeologists already carry out (and are being remunerated for), no intellectual crusades are required in order to make a contribution to society.

The philosopher Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) famously argued that in a democratic society, all world views and thinking traditions should enjoy equal status and state support (see Holtorf 2000). According to the “democratic relativism” which Feyerabend proposed, the sciences and academic disciplines offer only one possible way of understanding the world (the past) and they ought not be privileged over any alternative ways of interpreting the world (the past). People do not have “deficits” of hegemonic scientific knowledge but specific local and contextual knowledge that is appropriate to their own lives. Consequently, Feyerabend argued for a need to separate the sciences from the state – parallel to the separation of the Church from the state. He suggested, for example, to teach in schools to the same extent alternative worldviews as the sciences. Moreover, he argued for juries of laypeople to control the sciences. Feyerabend’s critics pointed to the enormous scientific progress and the numerous practical applications and other benefits we all enjoy as a result of it, but he dismissed them by questioning this very progress and the superiority of the “benefits” it provided to date. In the case of archaeology, critics of a “democratic relativism” have an even more difficult task since virtually no practical – or indeed other –benefits of particular archaeological research are easily discernible, whereas the existing more general benefits can arguably also be provided by non-scientific or indeed non-academic approaches. Such more general benefits include the joy of witnessing historical stories, the formation of historically founded collective identities, the knowledge about our origins and possible futures, and the creation of heritage sites as visitor destinations. Put simply, in this perspective, “the purpose of engaging the public with archaeology is to encourage self-realisation, to enrich people’s lives and stimulate reflection and creativity” (Merriman 2004: 7).

The degree of openness towards peoples’ own understandings and concerns, which was characteristic for Feyerabend’s work, is mirrored in some recent work about the relations between science and society. For example, a recent report from the House of Lords (2000) emphasised repeatedly an increased need for dialogue between the sciences and society in order to rebuild the ostensibly damaged public trust in science and scientific experts. That report (chapter 5) speaks of “democratic science”, advocates a sea change in increased openness and public dialogue, and proposes the participation of lay people in scientific advisory groups, thus implementing precisely some of Feyerabend’s ideas. Even the very expression “public understanding of science” is put into question and “science and society” suggested as an alternative: “because it implies dialogue, in a way that ‘public understanding of science’ does not” (paragraph 3.19). Elsewhere, the phrase “public engagement with science” has been suggested, including even “street marches, boycotts and sit-ins” as legitimate means of action (Elam and Bertilsson 2003).

(A)rchaeological research is directed more and more inwards into the society of professional archaeologists itself, while at the same time serving easily digested pictures of the past to the public. Other contesting views of the past thus remain unofficial and outside of the official, authoritative picture produced by professional archaeologists. For many reasons, as we have seen, this can no longer be justified. … All voices demand to be heard, and if archaeology continues to deny such contesting pasts through means of ignorance, it is archaeology that will ultimately become marginalised and portrayed as an anecdote by the world…. It seems that archaeology must meet the world, and take the consequences of such a meeting by changing from within. There is a long way to go, recognising the problem is only a start. Anna Källén (2004: 114)

A similar change of heart can be found in some recent archaeological statements and debates. For example, “The Principles for Good Archaeological Practice” of The Swedish Archaeological Society mention the need for archaeologists not only “to inform the public” but also to “engage the local and/or indigenous people in the planning and execution” of archaeological projects (Broadbent 2004). This intention was mirrored in a recent policy review of the Swedish heritage sector, known as Agenda Kulturarv (2004). The resulting policy statement expressed the need to explain and refine, in co-operation with all stakeholders in the sector, the how, what and why of heritage management: “We must make the public’s involvement and participation our top priorities” (2004: 16). Similar thinking, highlighting the importance of dialogue between professionals and “the public”, has long informed cultural politics and its express aims. Unfortunately, the realities of archaeology do not always appear to have corresponded with these high ambitions. Arguably, the professionals have tended to prefer their own monologue, conducted in isolation, to a constructive and open-minded dialogue with a broad constituency of interested citizens (Gustafsson and Karlsson 2004).

A truly democratic approach can go even further than dialogue though. The Swedish archaeologists Håkan Karlsson and Björn Nilsson (2000: 23, all my translations) argued that “everybody has a right to have their own history”, that state heritage management must serve everybody equally, and that academic archaeology is nothing but a very specific phenomenon, relative to a particular context, and not inherently valuable to everybody. People are interested in archaeology for other reasons than what some professionals tend to believe. Karlsson and Nilsson went on to conclude (2000: 39) that “arguably the public is interested (in archaeology) not as a result of (professional) archaeology’s successful public outreach but rather despite of it.” Their argument can be read to imply that it is the public that should have the final say about what professional archaeologists do and not do.

In this view, fundamental changes in the public relations of professional archaeology are necessary. In a truly democratic society, professional archaeologists need to address the reasons why people are actually interested in both the past and in archaeology. They need to work together with non-specialists whenever possible. And they need to get worried indeed when alternative approaches to the past are becoming more successful in satisfying what people want to get out of archaeology (Fowler 1977: 189). It is thus the professionals who need to be willing to learn. Arguably, this should happen sooner rather than later (Karlsson and Nilsson 2000: 21):

At the present time it appears that (professional) Swedish archaeology is exploiting a great trust among the interested public. The question is though for how long the public is going to accept to be passively fed with our knowledge, and for how long people outside the professional sphere are going to tolerate our lack of interest in their interest.

This position may sound very persuasive at first but it is certainly not without its problems. There is a risk that too much is asked if people are to decide for themselves what the past was like and what archaeology is supposed to be doing. Competent decisions in these fields might require a degree of expertise that de facto only few non-professionals will ever acquire. But even when the issues at stake may be less complex, it is pertinent to consider that ”you can’t assume that people know what they want” (Packard 1960: 18). Any decisions taken democratically risk to reflect little else but superficial preferences based practically entirely on current TV programmes, Hollywood blockbusters or misunderstood popular science literature, while at the same time valuable historical sites may be irretrievably destroyed and opportunities for others to learn more about both academic archaeology and its results may be dramatically reduced. On the other hand, even if that should happen, precisely what would we lose? Just as it is wrong to assume that anything that results in raising the gross national product is good for a particular country and its people (cf. Packard 1960: chapter 23), it is also wrong to assume that anything that results in more widespread knowledge about academic science or in preserving more ancient sites is necessarily good for them either. There are alternative benefits to be gained from being more democratic. Professional archaeology is neither rocket science nor essential plumbing nor emergency surgery. Even if the Democratic Model will result in some setbacks for the field as it exists at the moment, the benefits from truly engaging more people and providing them with memorable archaeological experiences may well make up for them.

The call for public education has been a recurrent theme in the literature of archaeological heritage management, where both Western and non-Western archaeologists see it as an antidote to 'indifference' and 'apathy' towards the fate of archaeological sites. Posited here, implicitly, is an infantile condition: prior to education a void exists in the public's mind where knowledge of and respect for the material past should be. What I have tried to show in a limited way is that multiple and mature discourses on the material past already exist in the space archaeology depicts as void. What archaeology intends, really, is not education but re-education. Denis Byrne (1995: 278)

These matters are naturally not easy to resolve and lie at the heart of some far bigger discussions in political science. Ultimately the question is one of how we should best practice democracy, and the relevance of that question stretches to all areas of society, not just archaeology. The issue at stake is that about finding the right balance between public participation and the possibility of creative self-realization for as many people as possible on the one hand, and on the other hand the need for the state and its agencies to ensure that competent decisions are taken in all areas where, otherwise, public interests might be harmed. What is therefore patronising state propaganda for some, is public education for others. By the same token, what some may perceive as a legitimate expression of peoples’ own preferences is a first step towards dangerous anarchy for others.

However that may be, some such political concerns and democratic values certainly sound much less radical when they are applied to indigenous populations. Over more than a decade now, archaeologists have developed considerable (though perhaps still not satisfactory) sensitivity for the rights and interests of indigenous populations in many parts of the world (see e.g. Broadbent 2004). It is beyond question now that such non-professional voices need to be heard by archaeologists, and increasingly they are also being listened to.

As far as the portrayal of archaeology in Western popular culture is concerned, there is thus an important distinction between people in the West and people elsewhere, whether indigenous or not. Whereas the former are (however indirectly) driving the portrayal of archaeology that abound in contemporary popular culture, the latter are unable to advance to the same extent their own desired versions of archaeology. The Democratic Model has thus two very different consequences under these two very different conditions. Regarding the Western world, a democratic approach broadly defends popular culture against the interests of a narrow concern with the sciences and academic disciplines. Regarding the rest of the world, a democratic approach scrutinizes Western popular culture for messages that harm the legitimate rights and interests of non-Western societies. Since Western popular culture does not at all rely on derogative messages about other people, both strategies are not contradictory but rather complementary.

Common components of popular archaeology are notions of exotic places full of natives some of whom help Western archaeologists recover lost pasts, reveal mysteries, unearth treasures, and demonstrate how primitive conditions have once (before) been overcome. Combined with ”the heroizing of an archaeology that can accomplish such wonders through the glories of western science,” such notions legitimate a very problematic view of modernization and a particular view of archaeology contributing to that process (Cohodas 2003). Although, in Western democratic societies, audiences are certainly free to chose by which stereotypical heroes they wish to be entertained and how they prefer to interpret the world, some of these notions are hardly in the interest of the local people implicated. On that account they need to be challenged. As the Canadian anthropologist Manuel Cohodas (2003) argued, even if some established parameters will need to be modified, archaeological hero stories can still be told and they can still be exciting for Western audiences:

I realize that in the present situation, neither archaeologists nor the media want to surrender the construction of archaeologists as heroes. So, I propose a compromise. Let archaeologists continue to be heroes. Let them be rewarded for great heroic efforts and applauded by the public as well as granted funds to continue and increase their heroism. But let us measure that heorism by a different standard. Let archaeologists be deemed heroes when they advance the cause of the Indigenous Peoples who are the descendants and inheritors of the past that they excavate and interpret. Let them be heroes when they ask these descendants what kind of archaeology might serve their purposes, when they consult about the questions to be asked and the methods to be used to seek to answer them. Let archaeologists be heroes when they train indigenous archaeologists and treat them as colleagues, encouraging and empowering a strong aboriginal voice in the collaborative formation, nature, and dissemination of interpretation. Let them be heroes when they respect the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples who are not archaeologists.

That, too, is a position that follows from the Democratic Model. And that is another reason why I have particular sympathies with this model, although I would certainly not want to dismiss any of the other two models out of hand either.

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