‘All those Rocks….were Talking to Each Other’: Three Scenes of Archaeologists at Work

Abstract

We are very appreciative of Patricia McAnany’s and Sarah Newman’s responses to our article. Their thoughtful comments challenge us to clarify and extend our thinking on this topic. Additionally, the meaningful intersections between our work and McAnany’s and Newman’s significant research contributions to the field of Maya studies point towards several important areas that need to be grappled with further. In our reply, we focus on three thematic areas, while also incorporating specific responses to some (though, for reasons of space, not all) of the comments and critiques raised by McAnany and Newman. We organize our response around three vignettes. These brief scenes provide openings for discussion of issues raised by the commenters, related to three questions: Are we ‘countermapping’ in the sense that it is widely understood? To what extent does our undertaking successfully frame dynamic, relational, or multiple knowledge in productive, non-binary ways? And, how do we position the impact of this work, and, in particular, our methodological choices? 1. WHAT ARE WE DOING?