But Isn't All Archaeology ‘Public’ Archaeology?

Abstract

This paper focuses on two trends in the debate over the scope and nature of public archaeology. The first is a growing concern to define and codify its disciplinary boundaries. The second trend, arguably in tension with the first, is the ever-widening exploration of how people engage with their past, and the ramifications for the way archaeology, in its widest sense, is practised. It is argued that an excessive preoccupation with demarcating the disciplinary boundaries of public archaeology may risk obscuring a far more important objective, tied to the second trend referred to above. Debates on the relationship between the public, the past, and archaeological practice have resulted in a sea-change in attitudes to the responsibilities of the archaeologist, in the relationship between scientific knowledge and popular and indigenous knowledge, and in ideas about the relevance and usability of the past. Public archaeology is concerned with all these issues. It is argued that, to fulfil this wider vision, public archaeology cannot afford the strictures of a specialized discipline within archaeology, but must remain a persistent, essential, and foundational ingredient in the competencies and sensibilities of every archaeologist and co-worker in the field.

Keywords:

• public
• archaeology
• deficit model
• popular knowledge
• archaeological practice

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the organizers of the Round Table session on ‘Public Archaeology from the Ground Up’ held during the nineteenth meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Pilsen in 2013, for the opportunity to participate, and to all the participants in that session for a very lively and stimulating discussion. I am also indebted to the editor of Public Archaeology for his very helpful advice.

Notes on contributor

Reuben Grima is a senior lecturer in the Department of Conservation and Built Heritage at the University of Malta, where he lectures in cultural heritage management. He studied archaeology at the University of Malta and the University of Reading, and read for his PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, where he held a Commonwealth Scholarship from 2000 to 2003. He joined the curatorial staff of the Museum of Archaeology in 1992, serving in a curatorial role for nearly two decades. From 2003, he served with Heritage Malta as Senior Curator responsible for prehistoric Word Heritage Sites, until 2011, when he moved to the University of Malta. His research interests are the Maltese Neolithic islandscape, archaeological site management, cultural landscapes, the history of archaeology, and public engagement with the past.