Transnational turns for archaeological heritage: From conservation to development, governments to governance

Abstract

National sentiments have historically overwhelmed global ones in the modern era. Archaeology was born in the service of the nation-state, as a technical means for engaging with the past within a specific calculus of territory, sovereignty, and nationhood. Significant shifts are currently underway, however, towards transnational modes and mechanisms of governance that have arisen in the wake of international dysfunction and neoliberal reforms. Within this emerging field of action it is development, rather than conservation, that shapes the diverse work of archaeological practice in the world. Transnational sociopolitical contexts for archaeological practice most visibly gained traction with multilateral development banks’ turn to heritage development in the 1990s, built around the tenets of participation, capacity-building, and sustainability. From these roots a second generation of concerns has emerged—transnational communities, heritage rights, and global climate change—for archaeological practice attuned to a “politics of engagement” (Mullins 2011 Mullins, P. R. 2011. “Practicing Anthropology and the Politics of Engagement: 2010 Year in Review,” American Anthropologist 113(2): 235–245. doi: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2011.01327.x[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in a transnational key.