From Ethnic Identity to DNA Analysis: Epistemological Misunderstandings in Archaeology
U Centru za jugoistočnoeuropske studije (CSEES) Sveučilišta u Grazu Monika Milosavljević održat će u petak, 26. siječnja 2018. u 10 sati predavanje o preispitivanju nove pozicije arheologije kao discipline.
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CSEES
Uni Graz
visiting lecture
Location:
Resowi, SR 15.33
Date:
Friday, 26 January, 2018 – 10:00 to 11:00
Speaker(s): Monika Milosavljevic (University of Belgrade)
Description:
Reflective analysis aims to rethink archaeology’s current position in the context of the discipline’s new state within Europe, termed by Kristian Kristiansen as the new science revolution in archaeology. The discipline has indeed entered a novel state, but not in the manner of falling into different paradigm, rather as being overtly exposed to market-economy forces. Therein, it would appear that the specific relation today between the hard sciences and the humanities has resulted in the field of biomedicine as being sufficiently relevant for this new context.
Consequently, past social relations are now seen mainly through the lens of measurable scientific techniques, discarding social theory in the process. To illustrate, in the current archaeological imagination, social identity is frequently restricted falsely to ethnicity (or race). Furthermore, these identity phenomena are wrongly perceived as quantifiable and easily reconstructable by a-DNA analysis. This approach oversimplifies culture-nature integration and should be addressed through corresponding critical approaches.
Monika Milosavljević is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy (University of Belgrade) as well as a research-assistant on the project Archaeological Culture and Identity in the West Balkans funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. She lectures on archaeological theory and methodology. Her research interests lie in the political usage of archaeology, the history of Serbian/Yugoslavian archaeology, sociocultural evolution, the archaeology of identity, and archaeological theory in general. In recent years, she has focused on the history of ideas in Serbian and Yugoslavian archaeology. Moreover, she is interested in theory and methodology into the history of science, particularly in the work of Ludwik Fleck. She is currently researching work on the intersection of human-animal relations, referred to as the “animal turn”, in medieval studies.