Decoupling ‘Open’ and ‘Ethical’ Archaeologies: Rethinking Deficits and Expertise for Ethical Public Participation in Archaeology and Heritage

Abstract

In this article I caution the assertions made in the 2018 volume of NAR on the future of archaeology that archaeology is well on its way to decolonising itself and that ‘open’ archaeologies that invite public participation and utilise new digital technologies are inherently ethical. I begin by critiquing the exclusively positive connotations of archaeology, digital technologies and public participation, before drawing on critiques of the ‘simple deficit model’ within science communication, which I argue are equally applicable to public archaeology. I use the ‘simple deficit model’ and a review of shifting perspectives on legitimate heritage expertise to lay the foundation for an archaeology that is both ‘open’ and ‘ethical’. I conclude that, as in science communication, such an archaeology requires archaeologists to develop more accurate understandings of both archaeology and publics.

INTRODUCTION

The contributions to this issue, themed around ‘open archaeology’, are positioned in response to discussions of the future of archaeology in a conference session celebrating NAR’s 50th anniversary in 2018 (and published in that year’s anniversary issue). 2019, the 50th anniversary of Shelley Arnstein’s ‘ladder of participation’ (Arnstein 1969), is a timely year in which to unsettle the assumptions underpinning the common-sense claim that ‘Open Archaeology is a pathway to a more ethical archaeological practice’ in the future (Milek 2018). My issue with this statement is not that ‘open’ approaches that invite non-archaeologists to participate in archaeology, often by mobilising new digital technologies, cannot be ethical, but the overly simplistic claim that they necessarily are. Two assumptions central to this claim, which are widely held in the sector, are that public participation and archaeology are both inherently good things. I argue that these assumptions inhibit critical self-reflection and go some way to explain the prevalence of ‘sunny’ accounts of collaborative archaeological projects (Halperin 2017) and the shocking lack of structured evaluation of public archaeology projects (Ellenberger and Richardson 2018). In doing so, I echo Sara Perry, who draws on critiques from both archaeology and museum studies to argue that ‘the evidence that archaeology and heritage institutions are genuinely realising their social justice, active democracy, and civil welfare aims is questionable, if not non-existent’ (Perry 2019). In this article, I position ‘open archaeology’, and in particular approaches that centre new digital technologies, as a form of social innovation and draw on Sebastian Olma’s critique of the concept in order to argue that any claims made about the morally good nature of ‘open archaeology’ must be demonstrated, not assumed (Olma 2016). By unsettling assumptions about participation and archaeology, I aim to decouple ‘open’ and ‘ethical’ archaeologies, before arguing that archaeologists must rethink their understandings of publics and expertise before we can begin to move towards a more critical understanding of how archaeology may be both ‘open’ and ethical.

Emily Dawson begins her book, Equity, Exclusion and Everyday Science Learning (Dawson 2019), with an interview excerpt and two questions, asking ‘what does it mean to feel that science museums and indeed that “science itself” are not for you? And why does that matter for our societies?’ Should archaeologists care that in the UK, where white people make up 85% of the working age population (Office for National Statistics 2018), 99% of professional archaeologists, 97% of professional conservators and 98% of conservation volunteers, 95% of museum staff and 95% of volunteers on projects funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which includes archaeological projects, are white (BOP Consulting 2011, Aitchison 2013, Aitchison and Rocks-Macqueen 2013, Arts Council England 2019)? In this article, I argue that archaeologists should care and that these concerns should be at the core of any developments towards a more ‘open’ archaeology. This is because how we attempt to ‘include’ cannot be decoupled from the ways in which the sector is experienced as exclusive by many who do not participate. Significantly, the ways in which modes of inclusion can exclude are not merely limited to ethnic and racial divides. Yet, when considering inclusion, we must heed González-Ruibal’s assertion that ‘we should always wonder about the archaeology of our knowledge’ (González-Ruibal 2018). It is therefore imperative to ask why ‘participation’ is such an enduring buzzword in 2019. As I have argued elsewhere, we should be wary of celebrating the rise of volunteer involvement in archaeology when it coincides with cuts to professional services (Fredheim 2018), or as Lorna-Jane Richardson has put it: ‘replacing paid positions with volunteers is an austerity-budget solution, not a punk [or democratising] one’ (Richardson 2017, p. 313).

In this article I centre literature from across public archaeology, museum studies and heritage conservation and management because these fields face similar challenges in developing ‘open’, democratising and participatory approaches, and because the critical literature on public participation in archaeology is limited. I deliberately differentiate between ‘engagement’ and ‘participation’ and reserve the use of ‘participation’ for approaches where archaeologists and heritage professionals work in collaboration with publics. Here I define ‘publics’ as all individuals who do not identify as archaeologists, which, when made explicit in this way, highlights the imperative to understand publics and avoid unhelpful generalisations. First, I briefly introduce critical perspectives on participatory approaches and caution the ease with which archaeologists seem to think archaeology can shed its ideological baggage and be ‘decolonised’. This cements the necessity of critically evaluating the impacts of participatory projects, reviewing participants’ experiences and considering who is excluded from participating and why. I then explore critiques of the ‘simple deficit model’ in science communication, to argue that by regarding publics as deficient due to their perceived lack of knowledge about, and appreciation for, archaeology, archaeologists position publics as beneficiaries, deny non-participants agency and restrict archaeologists’ ability to reflect critically on their own participatory initiatives. I demonstrate how the ‘simple deficit model’ is inextricably tied to entrenched perceptions of legitimate heritage expertise, which in turn limit the ways in which archaeologists can productively interact with publics. Finally, I outline a few initial steps we can take towards developing ethical and open archaeologies and reassert my argument that this process cannot be circumnavigated simply by adopting the latest digital technologies.

DECOUPLING OPEN AND ETHICAL ARCHAEOLOGIES

Shelley Arnstein’s much cited ‘ladder of participation’ outlines how the participatory practices of social programmes initiated by the United States federal government could be characterised by eight rungs on a ladder, ranging from ‘manipulation’ to ‘citizen control’. She explains that ‘the idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you … the applause is reduced to polite handclaps, however … when the have-nots define participation as redistribution of power’ (Arnstein 1969, p. 216). While her typology was designed to disentangle various forms of participation in the 1960s planning system in the United States, she argues that the principles remain the same in other fields. Critical perspectives on participation have since emerged in the planning literature in the UK (Damer and Hague 1971), in development literature (Cohen and Uphoff 1980) and more recently in museums and archaeology (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2008, Watson and Waterton 2010, Atalay 2012, Onciul 2015, Colwell 2016). Sarah White and Jules Pretty have contributed further typologies of participation that shift the critical focus from participants to those who initiate participatory processes, with higher level participation defined as ‘transformative participation [that] achieves empowerment’ (White 1996, p. 13) and ‘self-mobilization’ (Pretty 1995, p. 1252, cf. Cornwall 2008a). Pretty’s definition of ‘self-mobilization’ neatly explains how institutions can strategically ‘empower’ others and appear to be democratising systems while reinforcing existing power structures through governance networks:

People participate by taking initiatives independently of external institutions to change systems. They develop contacts with external institutions for resources and technical advice they need, but retain control over how resources are used. Self-mobilization can spread if governments and NGOs provide an enabling framework of support. Such self-initiated mobilization may or may not challenge existing distributions of wealth and power.

(Pretty 1995, p. 1252)

Critical literature on participation highlights that ‘the term has become increasingly elastic’ and that it is generally unclear ‘what exactly this much-used buzzword has come to mean’ (Beebeejaun 2016, p. 7, cf. Cornwall 2008b, p. 269). Arguably, it is this elasticity that makes ‘participation’ attractive; all participation is assumed to be good and it can be mobilised in whichever form is most convenient. It allows institutions to ‘empower’ individuals to work to institutional priorities without adequate, or in some cases any, pay in the name of ‘inclusion’ and ‘democratisation’. It is in this sense that development scholars Henkel and Stirrat argue ‘empowerment’ may function as a form of ‘subjection’ (Henkel and Stirrat 2001, p. 178). The heritage sector, which is in a perennial state of requiring further funding and assumes any public participation to be morally good, is particularly susceptible to neoliberal governance models that simultaneously position citizens as a resource and cast participants as beneficiaries (Fredheim 2018, cf. Rosol 2016). Heritage scholars and practitioners should therefore be particularly wary of equating ‘open’ with ‘ethical’ approaches.

Archaeology has manouvered itself to be perceived as good and of relevance to everyone through its association with ‘heritage’ (Waterton and Smith 2009). Yet, archaeology remains a deeply political endeavour that is inextricably tied to imperialist and colonial ideology and dispossession (Abu-Khafajah and Miqdadi 2019). As highlighted by Anne Pyburn, archaeological theory implicitly reinforces Western narratives of predeterminism and progress, demarks other societies as primitive and reinforces popular justifications of colonial supremacy (Pyburn 2005). Richard Hutchings and Marina La Salle reach similar conclusions based on their survey of the content of textbooks used in undergraduate archaeology courses in the United States and Canada, arguing that ‘evolutionary ideologies combine with scientistic methodologies to create a practice that is fundamentally imperialist’ (Hutchings and La Salle 2014, p. 38). They cite anti-colonial and decolonial scholars to explain how they ‘are unable to get past the appropriation of the term “post-colonial” by North American scholars to refer to research taking place in still-colonized and colonial countries; in this context, “decolonization” is at best a metaphor, at worst a rebranding of exploitation’ (Hutchings and La Salle 2014, p. 39 original emphasis, cf. Dei and Asgharzadeh 2001, Tuck and Yang 2012).

The danger of colonial practices masquerading in the guise of ‘decolonial’ engagement has been noted for both archaeology and museums (cf. Liebmann and Rizvi 2008, Lydon and Rizvi 2010, Boast 2011, Onciul 2015). While we may not expect all archaeologists to read postcolonial or decolonial theorists, archaeologists who wish to mobilise terms such as ‘decolonisation’ should at least familiarise themselves with their origins before employing them. This is not an unreasonable request, also in Scandinavia, as reflected by the established history of postcolonial literature in Sámi Archaeology in Norway (cf. Olsen 2016). It requires no more than a cursory reading of a short summary of these fields of scholarship, such as celebrated sociologist Ghurminder Bhambra’s ‘Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues’ (2014), to understand the extent to which these theories conflict with established archaeological theory. Postcolonial literature emerges from the Middle Eastern and South Asian diasporas, while decolonial scholarship has its origins in South America. Bhambra notes that both bodies of scholarship challenge Eurocentric historiographies that fail to identify colonialism, empire and enslavement as integral to the modern European project. She explains that while Edward Said’s postcolonial Orientalism critiques the discipline of Oriental Studies and identifies how the Orientalist depiction of non-European ‘others’ as passive and docile is integral to the imperial institution, Anibal Quijano sets the stage for decolonial theory in his claim that it is impossible to separate modernity and coloniality due to how European identity and self-realisation is founded in colonial domination over, and differentiation from, other cultures (Bhambra 2014, cf. Said 1995, Quijano 2007). Both archaeology and museums are inextricably tied to this Western project of modernity/coloniality.

It is telling that while archaeologist Liv Nilsson Stutz claims it is ‘safe to say that we are moving toward decolonization’ (Nilsson Stutz 2018), decolonial archaeologists highlight how these supposed moves towards decolonization are highly selective and arguably do more to spread modern/colonial ideology (Gnecco 2015). In a similar vein, Sumaya Kassim, Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Material Culture in Leiden and Co-curator of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s ground-breaking exhibition ‘The Past Is Now’, cites black feminist author Audre Lorde to argue that ‘the museum will not be decolonised’ (Kassim 2017): ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change’ (Lorde 1984, p. 112). This view is supported by Bryony Onciul, who concludes her book on Heritage, Museums and Indigenous Voice with a reflection on the limits of change on offer:

Although engagement encourages new ways of working and adaptation, the underlying principles of museology currently remain generally intact and residual practices continue, even in community owned centres, because they are enshrined in dominant Western professional and social approaches to heritage management. Indigenous practices continue to be viewed by the majority as unprofessional and unscientific, and therefore secondary to Western approaches.

(Onciul 2015, p. 240)

Indigenous archaeologist Paulette Steeves has coined the term ‘pyro-epistemology’, drawing on the Indigenous practice of burning away ‘old dense forest undergrowth and [allowing] the sunlight to bring new life to the earth,’ to describe a ceremonial practice of ‘Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing … [that] cleanses the academic landscape of discussions that misinform worldviews and fuel misunderstanding and racism’ (Steeves 2015, p. 62). Pyro-epistemology is a powerful metaphor, which argues that ‘decolonising’ archaeology would require first burning it to the ground, a sentiment that mirrors Colombian anthropologist Luis Guillermo Vasco Uribe’s decolonial theorising that has been termed ‘anti-anthropology’ (Haber 2016). This is an entirely different project to making archaeology ethical by including publics in professional practices or mobilising new digital technologies to render it ‘open’. Lauding the introduction of portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and archaeological crowd-sourcing projects such as Global Xplorer as examples of ‘open’ and ‘ethical’ archaeological practice betrays that the imagined social ‘problem’ technology is mobilised to solve is one of simple non-participation (cf. Milek 2018). This foregrounding of technology is particularly ironic given the continuing role of Western science in colonialism. As Suman Seth notes, ‘decolonization movements, however, quickly began to call into question any vision of science as a positive enterprise that merely accompanied – and did not aid or support – a rapacious colonialism (Seth 2009, p. 373).

Digital technology features prominently in Sebastian Olma’s critique of ‘changeless change’, because of how readily it allows business ventures to claim the ethical virtues of ‘social innovation’ without changing the aims of their practices. He explains that while there is nothing wrong with using digital technology to address social problems, assessments of any innovation’s virtues should include an assessment of their ‘social genealogy’ through an enquiry ‘into the “beliefs and desires” that brought it into existence’. This demands ‘at least an awareness of economic, cultural, ideological, etc. forces that have shaped the technology one uses for one’s particular purpose’ (Olma 2016, p. 68). For example, instead on focusing on reducing the Western illicit antiquities market, what antiquities trafficking expert Donna Yates terms the only ‘feasible and effective’ means of protecting archaeological sites from looting (Yates 2018), Global Xplorer adopts a citizen science methodology based on the idea of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing was invented to circumnavigate labour laws (Bergvall-Kåreborn and Howcroft 2014, cf. Surowiecki 2004, Howe 2006a, 2006b) and, while it has proven to be an effective approach to facilitating citizen science in some cases, crowdsourcing projects limit interactions between scientists and participants and are notorious for high drop-out rates, resulting in the majority of the work being completed by a small number of ‘super-users’ (Dunn and Hedges 2012, Causer and Terras 2014, Eccles and Greg 2014, Haklay 2016). Tellingly, user experiences in these digital citizen science projects are only just beginning to be systematically studied (cf. Skarlatidou et al. 2019).

Global Xplorer is such a digital interface, through which volunteers perform repetitive tasks that align with founder Sarah Parcak’s research interests. When first entering the project website, visitors are presented with the statement ‘Our human story is being lost’, accompanied by images of indigenous people in traditional dress. These images are made up of square tiles, some of which gradually fade to white, communicating the message that these people and ‘our human story’, which their bodies represent, ‘is being lost’ before our very eyes. ‘With your help, GlobalXplorer° will strive to discover and protect our shared human story. Using satellite imagery, we can fight the loss of our cultural heritage’ (GlobalXplorer° n.d.a). The website represents a striking mobilisation of the Orientalist tropes that form the subject of Said’s postcolonial critique. Visitors are encouraged to protect ‘our shared human story’ from the docile non-white other, who is simultaneously robbed of agency, identified as dangerous and positioned as in need of policing by benevolent Western ‘space archaeologists’. Global Xplorer’s neocolonial nature is further reinforced by Patreon.com donor tiers that are styled after notoriously unethical fictional archaeologists such as Lara Croft and Nathan Drake and their exploits. The descriptions appeal to and evoke popular conceptions of archaeology and antiquities collecting that originate in archaeology’s imperialist and colonial legacy that fuels illicit antiquities markets (GlobalXplorer° n.d.b, cf. Dennis 2019, Pyburn 2005, Hutchings and La Salle 2014). As a form of social innovation, then, if we look beyond the use of digital technology, Global Xplorer arguably changes very little.

Taking a critical approach to participatory archaeological projects does not involve declaring that public participation in archaeology cannot be worthwhile, but it does require asking pointed questions, not least why archaeologists seek public engagement and participation in the first place (Richardson and Dixon 2017, cf. Jones 2014). In their introduction to New Perspectives in Global Public Archaeology, Matsuda and Okamura propose a typology of approaches to public archaeology, ranging from ‘educational’ and ‘public relations’ through ‘critical’ and ‘multivocal’ approaches (Matsuda and Okamura 2011, p. 6, cf. Merriman 2004, Holtorf 2007, Richardson and Almansa-Sánchez 2015). While this typology is useful in highlighting the wide scope of public archaeology as a concept and in aligning types with Merriman’s discussion of ‘deficits’, it unhelpfully implies that approaches that present or promote archaeology to publics envision publics as deficient, while those that work with publics are democratic and value multiple perspectives. This overlooks that archaeology can be presented and advocated for in ways that recognise and value the agency of publics, and that an interest in working with publics does not preclude regarding them as deficient. Archaeology has a long history of working with volunteers and the UK heritage sector is undeniably dependent on volunteers, yet this does not preclude the possibility of this relationship being condescending and exploitative (Fredheim 2018). Having argued that public participation in archaeology is not inherently ethical, I now turn to how the ways archaeologists think about publics need to change in order to facilitate the development of an ethical ‘open’ archaeology.

PARTICIPATION DEFICITS

The ‘simple deficit model’ has an established history in more critical science communication literature (Dawson 2018, 2019, cf. Ziman 1991, Wynne 1991, Irwin and Wynne 1996, Lock 2011) and was briefly introduced to the fields of museum studies and public archaeology by Sharon Macdonald and Nick Merriman respectively (Macdonald 2002, Merriman 2004). During the conference that launched the new journal Public Understanding of Science in April 1990, Physicist John Ziman first argued that ‘a simple “deficit” model, which tries to interpret the situation [the perceived lack of public support for science] solely in terms of public ignorance or scientific illiteracy, does not provide an adequate analytical framework for many of the results of our research’ (1991, p. 101). Implicit in this critique of the ‘simple deficit model’ is a call to seek to understand individuals whose attitudes towards science deviate from those scientists hope for in order to move beyond overly simplistic generalisations of deficient publics. In her research on participation in everyday science learning, Emily Dawson expands the concept from referring to a simple lack of knowledge to a simple lack of engagement or participation, yet the core of the concept remains unchanged. She describes it as the prevalent belief ‘within everyday science learning that these practices, venues and their content are wonderful, and if minoritised communities only know this secret, they would flock to them’ (Dawson 2019, p. 23). Bernadette Lynch makes a similar argument with regard to museums:

The overarching point here is that museums are simply too entrenched in habits of mind to change themselves, no matter how much they talk about it to one another. It requires a degree of ‘un-learning’ to understand that community engagement and participation are not a question of ‘inviting people in’ to the museum’s ‘party’ – it is rather about saying, ‘We can’t do this without you – we need you! We need your critique in order to change”. Then, and only then, might museums begin to develop a proper partnership with community partners.

(Lynch 2015, p. 3, my emphasis)

This same simple deficit model is operationalised in Historic England’s ‘Heritage Counts’ series, which has been promoted with the slogan that ‘heritage makes you happy’, selectively presenting data that appears to provide evidence for their argument that people would be happier and report higher levels of wellbeing if only they participated in heritage more (Fredheim 2018). This rhetoric has been toned down in the 2018 iteration of the series and earlier editions are no longer available online (Historic England 2018).

Critics of the simple deficit model argue that it does not accurately capture how non-scientists understand or use science and incorrectly assumes a direct correlation between knowledge about science and levels of trust in and support for science, thereby misidentifying effective engagement strategies (Ziman 1991, Irwin and Wynne 1996, Macdonald 2002, Lock 2011). This critique lies at the heart of what Irwin and Wynne mean by their claim ‘that it is science which misunderstands both the public and itself’ by simultaneously blaming non-participating publics and absolving itself of any responsibility (Irwin and Wynne 1996, p. 10, original emphasis). Archaeologist Sarah May argues that the same mistaken assumptions underpin much public engagement work in archaeology. She identifies English Heritage’s ‘Heritage Cycle’ as ‘a deficit model suggesting that if people do not participate sufficiently in heritage it is because they do not have enough concern for its vulnerability’ (May 2019, cf. Thurley 2005). The Heritage Cycle was ‘English Heritage’s strategy for making our past part of our future [by creating] a cycle of understanding, valuing, caring and enjoying’. The English Heritage Strategy 2005–2010 went on to assert that ‘knowledge is the prerequisite to caring for England’s historic environment. From knowledge flows understanding and from understanding flows an appreciation of value’ (English Heritage 2005). The implication, as May identifies, is that the reason for any lack of public support in caring for heritage is a simple lack of knowledge. Furthermore, while the cycle is not referenced in formal policy documents by either English Heritage or Historic England today, May argues the assumed causal link between, engaging, enjoying, understanding, valuing and caring for heritage continues to underpin both organisations’ outreach work (May 2019).

Critical science communication literature challenges these causal links for science communication (Macdonald 2002, Lock 2011, cf. Evans and Durant 1995, Wynne 1995, 1996, Irwin and Wynne 1996), while Dawson’s more recent research provides contextualising evidence in insights from interviewees who claim they are well aware of what is on offer in science museums yet would never choose to visit and might even be embarrassed to admit having been there (Dawson 2018, p. 779). Other research in museum studies has similarly demonstrated that engaging with museums is not inevitably a positive experience and may not promote support for institutions (Lynch and Alberti 2010, McSweeney and Kavanagh 2016). The recent establishment of Museum Detox and Museum as Muck, networking and peer support groups for Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and working class museum staff in the UK respectively, further highlights the perception of museums as exclusive, white and middle class spaces. Clearly, reasons for non-participation are more complex than simple public ignorance and while non-participation research is lacking in archaeology, the lack of diversity among sector employees and volunteers suggests that archaeology is perceived to be similarly exclusive. While it is reasonable to accept that not everyone will ever be interested in archaeology, the stark demographic data referenced in the introduction to this article demonstrates that this is an issue that must be taken seriously.

The most pernicious consequence of inviting public participation based on an implicit simple deficit model is how it positions participants as beneficiaries. A particularly audacious example of this is projects that cite volunteer hours as match funding in grant applications, only to subsequently use the same volunteer hours to document benefits for participants, without any accompanying evidence of outcomes for people. Bryony Onciul has shown how positioning Blackfoot First Nations participants in Albertan museum projects as beneficiaries denies their agency and silences the potential personal costs of participating:

Engagement is generally viewed by museums as a positive process for the benefit of the museum and community involved. Community participants are seen as beneficiaries, who gain representation, a voice within the museum, and training. However, community members often view the museum as the main beneficiary. My research reveals that for community members engagement can come at great cost, and they engage knowing the risks because they believe in the importance of their work. However, this agency is often overlooked because the assumption that community members are beneficiaries obscures the potential for consideration of negative outcomes.

(Onciul 2015, p. 119)

By regarding participants as beneficiaries, it becomes inconceivable that participants might participate at a cost to themselves or that those who do not participate are not simply ignorant and oblivious to the fact that they would be ‘happier’ if only they participated in heritage. Onciul rightly notes that this ‘assumption is paternalistic and patronising’ (Onciul 2015, p. 220). Bernadette Lynch reflects that her experience of working with UK museums that seek to engage in truly collaborative projects has demonstrated ‘a situation where the museum is committed to social change but, as an institution, has difficulty in changing itself’, where ‘no matter how progressive and “well-meaning” the museum’s practice may be, it becomes clear that the museum too often remains firmly in the centre, displaying a relationship of “chairperson”, teacher and pupil, “carer and cared-for”, even while citing high moral ground emancipation and “rights-talk”’ (Lynch 2017, p. 21, 23). Similarly, Trinidad Rico asserts that while ‘there is a habit in heritage-related disciplines of making recommendations for including alternative and marginalized voices, [there] is less of an interest in, ability to, and track record of putting these intentions into practice through dedicated and reflexive methodologies that sideline our own privileged expertise’ (Rico 2017, p. 48). At the end of the day, as Cristóbal Gnecco argues convincingly, the opening up of archaeology is done on archaeology’s terms in order to increase public awareness of, and support for, archaeology. ‘All in all, however, archaeology keeps spreading the fruits of Enlightenment and gets other (local) actors to participate in institutional spaces created to control the definition and management of disciplinary principles’ (Gnecco 2015, p. 4).

Dawson draws on Bourdieu’s theory of ‘symbolic violence’ to call for a more nuanced understanding of participation deficits, which connects with Onciul’s argument that the costs of participating are silenced by positioning participants as beneficiaries. Symbolic violence denotes a misattribution of agency in situations where someone who is excluded internalises blame for their own exclusion. It was originally used by Bourdieu to explain how women and the working classes are made to look and feel complicit in their own exclusion from traditionally male and middle class spaces (cf. Bourdieu 1990, Bourdieu and Passeron 1990, Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Because the simple deficit model denies structural inequalities, non-participants are blamed, and may internalise blame, for having ‘the wrong values and attitudes’ (Levitas 2004, p. 49, cf. Dawson 2018). As such, the simple deficit model also denies non-participants agency in choosing not to participate in opportunities they identify as inequitable:

I have argued that practices of racialised, classed and gendered discrimination worked to exclude participants from everyday science learning, producing a visceral, embodied sense of alienation for participants. Such practices led participants to reject everyday science learning in taken for granted and explicit ways, even at the same time as they were excluded.

(Dawson 2019, p. 104)

As a result, even where the possibility of structural exclusion is recognised, if non-participants’ actual agency in choosing not to participate is not recognised, the perception of participants as beneficiaries remains. This explains how robust evaluation and non-participation research continue to be perceived as superfluous and attempts at inclusion persist in prescribing education and cultural assimilation not societal or institutional change.

Understanding non-participation as, at least in part, caused by deliberate and informed rejections of archaeology and museums suggests there is no reason to believe that the addition of new digital technology will radically transform the relationship between archaeologists and the public, or change who takes part. Furthermore, as explored by Lorna-Jane Richardson and others, despite the ubiquity of digital media in contexts such as the UK, this does not mean the ‘digital divide’ does not remain a factor, both in terms of access to equipment and the digital literacy, social capital and support necessary to effectively, and safely, navigate digital spaces (Richardson 2013, 2014, Perry 2014, Perry and Beale 2015, Perry et al. 2015, Richardson and Dixon 2017, Taylor and Gibson 2017, Cook 2019). While technology may remove some barriers to participation it also erects others. Crucially, technological advancements do little to change the reasons why archaeologists are interested in engaging with publics or how they view publics in terms of their capacity or expertise. As Taylor and Gibson argue in their discussion of digital technology and ‘democratic’ heritage, ‘it is not the extent of interaction, but the kind of interaction’ that is significant (2017, p. 413, original emphasis).

Any discussion of participation deficits should accept that demographic deficits exist, but question what causes them, who these deficits are a problem for, in which ways and to understand the underlying reasons for them so they can be addressed appropriately. Sumaya Kassim’s experience as a co-curator for ‘The Past Is Now’ highlights the danger that individuals who are identified as able to help institutions change, who are likely to have been on the receiving end of the sector’s symbolic violence, are simultaneously identified as a resource and as beneficiaries. Positioning participants as beneficiaries elides any costs and negative outcomes and justifies unpaid roles, even when participants are valued for their expertise. Kassim evocatively describes this potential as one in which ‘people of colour are rolled in to provide natural resources – our bodies and our “decolonial” thoughts – which are exploited, and then discarded’ (Kassim 2017). Archaeologists and heritage professionals planning participatory projects should therefore carefully consider, and where appropriate involve potential participants in a discussion of, what the respective parties bring to the table and what they will take away, designing participatory experiences accordingly. Developing equitable partnerships in this way requires more accurate understandings of expertise.

EXPERTISE

The simple deficit model defines publics by the lack of something experts have, thereby predicating that experts should educate publics by sharing expert knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. These are generally those that paint experts’ work in a positive light, hence Holtorf and Matsuda and Okamura’s ‘educational’ and ‘public relations’ approaches to public archaeology (Holtorf 2007, Matsuda and Okamura 2011). In their critique of Schofield’s provocatively titled book, Who Needs Experts? (Schofield 2014), Herdis Hølleland and Joar Skrede identify that heritage scholars’ arguments against the authority of technical experts are based on a normative question: ‘what can and should heritage scholars do to develop more inclusive heritage practices’ (Hølleland and Skrede 2019, p. 827). Yet this idealist hope of a more democratic heritage does not in and of itself change heritage professionals’ perceptions of expertise. While the rise in participatory approaches is causing scholars to declare a shift in the role of the heritage professional from one of subject expert to expert mediator or facilitator (cf. Thomas 2004, Proctor 2010, Macdonald and Morgan 2018, Onciul 2019), research into perceptions of expertise tells a more complicated story, as several of the sources cited above also recognise. A survey conducted for the Profusion theme of the Heritage Futures research programme recently found that staff involved in collections development decisions in social history collections in the UK were divided on whether they felt members of the public should be involved in collecting and disposal decisions. Significantly, the most common reason given in favour of public participation was ideological, in that it was felt to foster and reflect public ownership of museums, while the most common reason given against public participation was practical: the belief that members of the public lack sufficient expertise and objectivity to usefully participate in collections development processes (Fredheim et al. 2018, p. 43).

This perceived expertise deficit does of course not limit museums’ willingness to employ volunteers, but it does influence the roles and responsibilities assigned to them. As I have argued above, positioning volunteers as deficient allows institutions to extract value from their unpaid labour while simultaneously claiming that volunteers are the beneficiaries of the exchange. I do not mean to suggest that volunteering cannot ever take the form of a symbiotic relationship, but rather that it is presumptuous to assume it inevitably does. In archaeology, the introduction of portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which requires scientific expertise and careful calibration in order to produce reliable results (cf. Shackley 2011, Shugar and Mass 2012, Speakman and Shackley 2013), and crowdsourcing techniques, which ask multiple volunteers to perform the same task to mitigate volunteers’ lack of expertise and produce more reliable results, do not represent truly new or innovative ways for archaeologists to interact with publics. Instead, they reproduce traditional expert/benefactor to deficient/beneficiary dynamics that perpetuate public participation as volunteer grunt-work and engagement as show-and-tell.

Like Hølleland, digital public archaeologist Lorna-Jane Richardson has collaborated with a sociologist to explore expertise in archaeology and heritage (Richardson and Lindgren 2017, cf. Hølleland and Skrede 2019):

When exploring the question of expertise through the sociological lens, we can better determine if traditional expertise is seen as obsolete in the era of crowdsourced knowledge, and how digital community archaeology, co-production, public engagement, and participatory technologies will affect the future of professional practise.

(Richardson and Lindgren 2017, p. 141)

Drawing on Bourdieu’s discussion of social practice they argue that ‘digital archaeology can indeed be analysed as being such a social “field of forces”’ (cf. Bourdieu 1985, p. 723–724):

When considering the complexity of use of digital technologies within digital archaeology – for example, for data capture, analysis and visualisation – one can begin to shift focus away from the character and method of tools and workflow, to issues such as the background of intellectual power and influence, specialisation in the project management process leading to fragmented work practices, data recording and communication techniques that may marginalise the non-specialist.

(Richardson and Lindgren 2017, p. 142)

They also draw on results from Richardson’s PhD thesis to show how the hierarchies of archaeological practice are not created anew but bleed through into digital spaces (Richardson 2014), using the example of how a community archaeology participant’s Facebook post will have lower ‘status’ than the interpretation offered by a ‘professional archaeologist shared and captioned by an archaeological organisation or affiliated individual professional.’ This explains how archaeology in digital spaces, ‘will still be judged in relation to the [“self-evident” hierarchies and social rules] of the archaeological field, digital or not’ (Richardson and Lindgren 2017, p. 144, Bourdieu 1984, p. 471). When considering ‘open’ archaeology, then, we should be asking what is being opened and how meaningful this new access is. Crucially, if we take public archaeology at all seriously, we should not stop there, but proceed to ask how it can be made more meaningful.

While the emergence of digital technology is arguably not significantly disrupting established perceptions of archaeological expertise, Hølleland and Skrede argue that the expanding definition of heritage is changing what it means to be a heritage expert (Hølleland and Skrede 2019, p. 826). This observation is consistent with Schofield’s claim that it is the growing focus on subaltern, local and everyday heritage that justifies claiming ‘we are all heritage experts’ (Schofield 2014, p. 2). While Hølleland and Skrede posit that accepting this claim involves ‘dissolving the very notion of experts’ and would thereby make it ‘difficult to distinguish between types of expertise’ (Hølleland and Skrede 2019, p. 828), heritage is already a highly amorphous field that encompasses a wide range of professional specialisms, all of which might be characterised as ‘heritage experts’. It should therefore be possible to recognise and valorise aspects of non-professional heritage expertise along the lines Schofield suggests without fundamentally undermining the notion of the professional ‘heritage expert’. However, it would be naïve to assume that recognising the legitimacy of other forms of knowledge and expertise will always lead to harmonious symbiosis, as highlighted by Steeves’ pyro-epistemology (2015), yet as Haber argues, ‘to enter into mutually transformative conversation, including the objectivities and subjectivities implied in archaeology, seems to be an open avenue for decolonizing archaeological thought’ (Haber 2016, p. 480).

In addition to recognising that publics may have advanced skills and knowledge that can be of relevance to professional work, defining publics as more than their lack of technical expertise invites considering which capacities publics have that could facilitate meaningful engagements with archaeology that go beyond absorbing ‘expert’ knowledge. It is in this context that Sara Perry argues heritage professionals tend to underestimate publics and that archaeologists should design encounters for publics that invite visitors into dialogue with expert knowledge and each other (Perry 2019, cf. Simon 2007, Lynch 2013). Such encounters are one example of public archaeology that recognises the agency of publics without seeking to homogenise expertise. Significantly, Perry argues that digital technology can play an important role in facilitating such encounters, but that this requires deliberate pedagogical and design choices that are not native to the technology itself.

TOWARDS AN ETHICAL ‘OPEN ARCHAEOLOGY’

The argument I have attempted to advance in this article is that while increasing public participation in archaeology may be a worthy goal, the scale of public participation in a project is at best a crude measure for judging its ethical virtue. I have deliberately not sought to outline practical steps or best practice for participatory projects. Archaeologists who are interested in a discussion of the various roles researchers may hold in participatory projects and how they can be approached would do well to begin by reading Fred McGee’s discussion of participatory action research and archaeology (McGhee 2012). Instead, I have attempted to take a step back to highlight the importance of interrogating the thoughts and attitudes towards archaeology and publics that underpin our attempts to make archaeology more ‘open’, stressing the fact that efforts to ‘open’ archaeology may, in some cases, have nothing to do with ethics.

In conclusion, then, I wish to argue that only ethics, not public participation or digital technology, can serve as a measure for the ethical nature of ‘open archaeology’. As Cristóbal Gnecco argues, ‘ethics is unavoidably nested in historical relations’ and must therefore be historicised, pluralised and localised by intimately connecting ethics to praxis (2015, p. 1–2). Such praxis cannot be formulaic but relies on iterative cycles of practice and informed critical reflection and must be underpinned by values such as humility and respect for difference. In my own praxis as a researcher, these concerns have led me to recognise the importance of non-participation research – to seek to understand why people do not engage with my practice in the way I intend them to as a first step to making my practice more open and ethical.

Arguing for a shift in understandings of public deficits and established perceptions of expertise is not a simple call to denying the value of specialist skills and knowledge. Instead it is intended to make room for new, and more productive ways of facilitating interactions between archaeologists and publics. Yet if this ‘open archaeology’ is to be an ethical one, it must do more than broadcast or invite public participation into established archaeological processes. For too long, public engagement has been based in a deficit model that designed encounters for publics based on archaeological knowledge and skills publics were perceived to lack and the belief that the world would be a better place if publics knew more about, and were more like, archaeologists. While a much-needed body of work on ethics for archaeology and heritage in the 21st century is emerging (cf. Gnecco and Lippert 2015, Haber and Shepherd 2015, Ireland and Schofield 2015, Richardson 2018, Dennis 2019), the ethics of participatory archaeological practice remain underdeveloped (though see Waterton 2015).

I have not set out to argue that there is anything inherently wrong with applying digital technologies or inviting public participation in archaeology. However, archaeologists must accept that there is nothing inherently good about such ‘social innovation’ either. This is the crucial first step towards developing an ‘open’ and ethical archaeology and introduces a series of considerations archaeologists must ask themselves before initiating participatory projects. The most foundational is, why encourage public participation in the first place? If the answer is to save money or boost professional capacity, this should prompt serious considerations of the necessity of the intervention that move well beyond platitudes of heritage being inherently valuable, endangered and at risk (cf. Holtorf and Ortman 2008, May 2009, 2019, Harrison 2013, 2016, 2017, Rico 2014, 2015, 2016, Vidal and Dias 2016, Fredheim 2018, DeSilvey and Harrison 2019). Similarly, any initiatives whose aims involve ‘capacity-building’, ‘empowerment’ or educating publics should query the origins of the perceived deficits that demand such interventions. Perhaps most importantly, recognising that archaeology, public participation and digital technologies are not inherently good things calls for the careful design and evaluation of meaningful participant experiences. Such evaluation cannot simply set out to demonstrate the benefits of participating but must involve exploring both positive and negative experiences, as well as the wider socio-political contexts projects are part of. Crucially, evaluation should involve identifying who does not participate and why. Ethics is an orientation towards practice, not a checklist, and only by carefully considering the perspectives of those who do not have positive experiences, or choose not to participate, can we hope to develop a truly ‘open’ and ethical archaeology – that it is possible to have one without the other (if open is read as participatory) should go without saying.

Acknowledgements

This article is a product of my ongoing doctoral research at the University of York, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/M007235/1], through the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities. The article is loosely based on a paper titled ‘Non-participation research for equitable heritage futures’ that I presented at the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory conference held at the University of Aarhus in 2018. I would like to thank Þóra Pétursdóttir and Charlotte Damm for organising this themed issue on ‘open archaeology’ and inviting me to contribute to it. I would also like to acknowledge John Schofield, Gill Chitty, Paul Edward Montgomery Ramirez, Lorna-Jane Richardson, Claire Boardman and Sara Perry for commenting on earlier drafts of this article. Finally, I want to express my gratitude for the constructive feedback of the two anonymous referees, who in particular emphasised the need to cite more decolonial archaeological theory from South America and to attempt to place more emphasis on constructive reflection on how ‘open’ archaeological practice could be made more ethical. While I may not have done all their feedback justice in this article, I hope to do so in the future.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council[AH/ M007235/1] through the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities.