ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we outline the archaeological approach in greater detail. This approach is primarily concerned with systematically reconstructing the socially shared meaning manifested in multimodal artefacts. Such artefacts are understood as ‘texts’ which act as ‘cultural memory’ or ‘storage’ of social knowledge. Accordingly, they constitute traces of world-building and world maintenance. However, multimodal texts do not ‘objectively’ represent the world; they are produced, disseminated, and interpreted in specific cultural and historical contexts. Archaeological research therefore does not claim to ‘objectively’ reconstruct organizational meanings, but acknowledges multiplicities of meanings, as well as power relations and strategic and rhetorical uses of multimodality. The chapter discusses which aspects of organization come into focus from an archaeological perspective and which research methods are primarily used. We introduce and outline a series of studies that illustrate the archaeological angle on multimodality. Finally, we suggest implications of different modes for archaeological research and outline specific challenges and opportunities regarding multimodality.
