ABSTRACT
Part of the challenge facing an ethical and socially responsible archaeology is to square traditional, time-honored commitments to ‘objective’ scholarly inquiry with the politically interested motivations of an emancipatory archaeology. Emancipatory archaeology has been defined in different ways (eg, Duke and Saitta 1998; Layton 1989; Leone and Preucel 1992; Wilkie and Bartoy 2000). In the view taken here, emancipatory archaeology is dedicated to expanding the conversation about what it means to be human by illuminating variation in the forms and consequences of social relationships that have organized human life across time and space. By ‘expanding’ I mean taking archaeological knowledge to audiences – native peoples, the working poor – who historically have had little use for archaeology as traditionally practiced. The organizational variation at issue in this conversation is, of course, contingent; that is, it is shaped by time, place and circumstance. Things could always have turned out differently. Emancipatory archaeology aims, through its conceptual frameworks and public outreach initiatives, to foster critical thought about the determinants of contemporary lived experience in hopes of impelling positive social change. Emancipatory archaeology is an archaeology of hearts and minds; it is a moral as well as scientific enterprise.
