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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
traditions of method and theory that the division between different
disciplines has produced and although we often speak in terms of materials
versus text it often really comes down to archaeological tradition versus
historical tradition. Although I have had my starting point in the material I
have tried to take a holistic approach where I acknowledge all material that
has come my way despite its ontological background. Although it has not
been possible to follow all these leads further, and one is forced to make a
selection, this has not been done as a result of seeing one source as less
valuable than others. The relationship between the different sources is
therefore complex. It is not my aim to go into detail on the relationship
between text and material here (although see Andrén 1998) more than to
highlight the discourses surrounding these two. Instead I want to focus on the
discussion of an alternative to history. Although alternative histories may
have been sought within archaeology there has not been much attention paid
to reaching something other than, or alternative to, history as noted by
archaeologist Þora Pétursdóttir (2012:587), Nandy 1995). “We seek other
histories and alternative histories – but we rarely seek beyond it. And while
we are concerned with what things remember it is mostly because we believe
they give us an alternative perspective on history (which they surely do), but
not that their memory may also differ from history”(Pétursdóttir 2012:587,
emphasis in original).
In the 1980s and 1990s we saw what is referred to as the ‘linguistic turn’,
a part of the post-processual theoretical strand in which the world was to be
seen as a text to be interpreted, the material to be used to reach the people
behind it (for example: Hodder 1982, Miller and Tilley 1984, for more
background see: Johnson 1999, Trigger 2007). It is the social, cultural and
symbolic meanings behind the objects themselves which have been
considered of most importance. Recently several researchers have claimed
that a new ‘material turn’ is on its way (for example: Burström 2011, Olsen
2012:20, Pétursdóttir 2012:577, Pétursdóttir 2013:32). Within this new
‘turn’ of archaeology materials are to be seen for what they are and not
“[load] them with interpretative burdens they mostly are unfit to carry”
(Olsen 2012:22). Archaeologist Bjørnar Olsen writes in his critique of the
linguistic paradigm: “[a] boat is never a boat; a reindeer is never a reindeer;
a river is always a “cosmic” river” (Olsen 2012:22). “It is possible that our
recent persistent efforts to make our silent objects speak – in order to make
them meaningful – have made us forget that they actually don’t”
(Pétursdóttir 2013:47). Both Pétursdóttir (2013) and Olsen (2012) discuss
the term ‘speaking’ in relation to materials, something also brought up also
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