Affective Cartography: A Reflective Essay on Emotions and Archaeology.
Introduction
Just as emotions drive
many aspects of the world around us today, so it is true that emotions have
been influential (and influenced) by the history that has shaped the past. For
historians, classicists, art historians and archaeologists, and others too,
investigation into emotions can greatly enrich our understandings of the past.
That said, interpreting emotion from cultures, times and places that are very
different to our own can be complex and problematic. My own discipline of
archaeology has been cautious and had relatively little to say about emotions.
For that reason I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the relationship
of emotion and archaeology, and both the challenges and potential benefits that
may hold for the future.
Emotion and Research
Emotions underpin so
many of our interactions in the world today, yet in academic discourse the
modern Western tendency has largely been to attempt to downplay the role of
emotions, or perhaps even to remove them from at least the stated aims and
methodologies of academic research. Since the Enlightenment, there has been an
assumption that learning and scholarship must be driven by rational objectivity
and empiricism; detached from more subjective emotion.[1]
For researchers there is inevitably emotions at play in behind the object of
their inquiry. Whether the research examines in detail the specific intricacies
of a single event in history, or takes a broad discursive view of deep
historical factors over centuries – emotion is always there.[2]
Emotion is always both affect and effect.
There is also inevitably an
emotional investment by the individual conducting the research. The objects of
the research, the research itself and the journey experienced in conducting
that research all result from and further generate emotional experiences. Human
beings are not automata, emotionless machines, yet intellectual rigour
requires, nay demands, a certain amount of emotional detachment and
objectivity. All of this contributes to a tension that has built up over
centuries between two seemingly juxtaposed positions rationality and emotions.
This polarisation
between rationality and emotion can be seen between different approaches
between different fields, but also even within a single discipline. The general modern Western interpretation is
that emotions are experienced internally to our individual consciousness, with
individuals emotional responses and expressions varying widely from experience
to experience and even varying significantly between people going through the
same or similar emotional experiences.[3]
The sciences have tended to view emotions as being biological and/or neurological
reactions to stimuli hardwired universally across humankind with the reaction
or expression of emotions varying between occurrences, people and cultures as
dictated by circumstance or expectation.[4]
From this perspective emotions are objective phenomena, even if that is an
electrical impulse through a pathway of neurons, but the experience and
expression of emotions is highly subjective and variable and therefore contrary
to the rationality, empiricism, and objectivity that is the foundation for the
scientific method. On the other hand, the humanities and social sciences have
often viewed emotions and the expression of emotions as social constructions,
being culturally relative, the result more of nurture than nature.[5]
More recently, perhaps due to greater interdisciplinary cooperation there is
increasing acknowledgement of both sides and more acceptance of intermediary positions
between these extremes.[6]
Archaeology and Emotion[7]
As I stated earlier, as
a discipline, archaeology has had surprisingly little to say (at least in
print) about the relationship of emotions in archaeological discourse. At first
this may appear surprising, as other similar and sometimes overlapping
disciplines like history and anthropology have been more inclined to embrace
theories of emotion and apply new interpretations of affect and emotion to
better understand people living in different times, places and cultures. I
suspect this caution about dealing with emotions has something to do with the
nature of archaeology as a discipline in and of itself. In the popular
imagination archaeology is represented by adventurous treasure hunters like
Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, or a little more realistically by popular British
television series like Time Team and Meet the Ancestors. By interpreting and
analysing finds of artefacts, architecture, human remains, technological
processes of production, sites, and texts, particularly anything found in situ (found in the original context
in which objects were left when deposited), archaeologists can rediscover and
analyse various aspects of life in the past. Archaeology is generally regarded
as a humanities discipline, however depending on the country and academic
institution, archaeology can be placed as a social science or even a science
taught alongside geology. In my experience, I have found that archaeology
exists in something of a luminal zone between the worlds of humanities and
social sciences on the one hand and the traditional sciences on the other. In conducting their research, archaeologists
are often aided or need scientific cooperation and so a working understanding
of radiocarbon dating, soil and organic chemistry, geology, animal and human
anatomy, botany, chemical residue analysis and various other forms of
scientific analysis can be invaluable for interpreting data and understanding
the processes at work on a site or upon artefacts. On the other hand, this data
is meaningless without the cultural understanding and analysis gained through
humanities research. Therefore archaeology is probably best considered among
the humanities, but one that can often draw important contributions from the
sciences.
[1] AHR 2012. Extensive discussion on the history
of academic approaches to emotions.
[2] Stearns 1993.
[3]
Different connotations to the use of
emotion, including as a “scientific term” available in Dixon 2012.
[4]
Gammerll 2012.
[5]
Plamper 2010 passim.
[6]
Plamper 2010 passim.
[7]
One of the few, but very comprehensive
studies can be found in Tarlow 2000.
