In this chapter I discuss the thinking behind what I describe as a multiple-fields approach. Taking direction from science studies, specifically the work of Bruno Latour, I rethink the relationship between the material world and language in the context of archaeological practice. This effort is divided into two distinct sections. In the first, I focus on the process implemented by the AEP. In closely following their practice from survey to publication I lay the foundation for a multiple-fields approach. As a means of excavating underneath the divide that results from the ‘field,’ synonymous with the material world, separated by a singular chasm from ‘publication,’ this approach disperses the ‘field’ of archaeological endeavor along the chain of transformations that takes place between the material world and our discursive modes. Here, I argue that our fields are situated around many small gaps coinciding with the individual steps of the archaeological process from field walking to drawing plans, taking photographs, sampling, measuring, narrating, etc.

In the second portion of the chapter I delve deeper into the notions of media and mediation and the possibility of bypassing certain problems related to interpretation. I discuss the ways in which media are generally treated in the discipline as means to an end. I briefly contextualize the ‘mystifying flip’ of McLuhan and the poststructuralists as well as the concern with the materiality of representation. In conclusion, I argue for media to be held in symmetry—as both the means and the end. Through my discussion of mediation I detail the ways in which the Latourian brand of science studies bypasses the problems of interpretation. Still, these schemes through their articulation in more traditional modes of documentation nevertheless fall short of the mark when it comes to conveying those properties of the material world encountered through human sensation and experience in scientific practice. I address this shortcoming through a more focused sense of mediation—by which we manifest aspects of the material world (the archaeological) normally denied by more traditional paper-based scenographies.

Return to Chapter 2 conclusion

Forward to Multiple fields and surface survey

Table of Contents

Multiple fields and archaeological practice Home