Choosing the Right Weapons and Arenas - Comments to Elliott and Warren

Abstract

Benjamin Elliott and Graeme Warren have bravely taken on the project to write a debate article for Norwegian Archaeological Review about colonialism and the European Mesolithic. The dialog-oriented shape they have given the text makes it valuable and thought provoking and the authors certainly deserves credit for this, as most decolonising debates resembles the trench warfare of the First World War, not very attuned to dialog. Their arguments are many and complex and the format of the debate makes it difficult to address all the issues that they raise. I therefore limit my comments to just a few themes. These are the European or Western peccatum originale; the benefits of universality; the relation between structure and history; and finally, the significance of the archaeological record itself. I find it fascinating that the text de facto presents the core of the decolonisation debate as a theological problem of the peccatum originale or original sin in western culture. Few people in European societies and even fewer researchers in archaeology have taken a direct or active part in oppressing indigenous populations across the world. Still, their thinking, their language and their way of life are oppressing. This is, as far as I can see the classical dilemma of the original sin. I must admit that I am very sceptical to this doctrine, and I find it paradoxical that this very western and Christian problem, defines the debate about decolonisation – a debate aimed at criticising the very same phenomenon. This does not make the debate or problems per se (the very uneven distribution of capital, influence and power in the world today) irrelevant or silly, it raises however the question of how we are best served to investigate, discuss and debate injustice in the world today. In this respect, I doubt that colonialism and post-colonialism are the best tools for making intellectual or political progress. The reason for this is first that I think the problems are much more complicated than the fact that some nations and people in the modern era colonised other people’s land. Second, the terms themselves – colonialism, post-colonialism – come to act as a metaphor of everything wrong and thus preclude any attempt to make a precise analysis of the problems at stake. Just like the terms processual and post-processual mobilised generations of archaeologists in the 70s, 80s and 90s, (post)-colonialism also effectively mobilises current archaeological thinking – but does the term describe something of substance? To me it seems much more like a repetition of a classical Christian and western paradox, introduced to control through penance – not to liberate or enlighten. In this perspective, it is interesting that Elliot and Warren emphasise that the archaeologists that have been inspired by the ‘ontological turn’ in their interpretations of Mesolithic societies abstained from letting