ABSTRACT
Reviewing the genealogy of engagements with land and community in the predisciplinary eighteenth century reveals the subtlety of the political negotiation. Central to author's review has been the concept of performance, with its wide valency. Archaeology establishes relationships, modes of engagement with the remains of the past. A particular forensic and suspicious attitude towards place and Archaeologists are often concerned with classification, choosing what goes with what, in sorting finds, in making a significant collection, in deciding what matters over what is irrelevant. This may even verge on technophilia. The author's Borders anecdotes reveal clearly that the archaeological imagination is intimately associated with the cultural politics of property, land, identity and belonging. There thus is an accompanying exhortation, to look beyond the academic discipline of archaeology through memory practices. The arrangement of things in place to fit the interest of viewing and inspection is a key component of archaeological work.
