Archaeological Ethnographies Workshop

RHYTHM, TEMPO, AND THE LONGUE DUREE: HOW PEOPLE LEARN TO EXPERIENCE TEMPORALITY

Drawing on field research on artisans and heritage conservation in Greece, Italy, and Thailand, I ask how the experience of work rhythms and tempi might affect local people’s understandings of longer temporal processes — including monumentality — and how those understandings might be further shaped by official, usually linear models.  Rejecting older distinctions between linear and cyclical time, I aim rather to develop a phenomenological approach that nevertheless does not beg the usual questions about psychological inner states.  In particular, I explore the issue of power relations as these filter embodied experience, including the visual appreciation of the evidence of times past.  Finally, with some trepidation, I ask whether archaeologists might be willing to pay more attention to their own bodily experiences as a way of understanding the ways in which their engagement with sites and with local people help to shape the public image of the archaeological site and its associated material remains.