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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
by archaeologist Mats Burström’s question: “[W]hat language(s) do things
themselves speak” (Burström 2012:43). Olsen proposes that if objects were
actually to speak they would say things like “…“walk here”, “sit there”,
“drive like this”, “use that entrance”….” (Olsen 2012:102). He suggests that
although this may appear banal this reflects our everyday interaction with
materials and as such they are important since they involve our senses, as
we touch, smell, taste things and through this everyday encounter with the
materials we “create affinity with the world; they evoke the symmetry
crucial for our common being in it” (Olsen 2012:102–103, emphasis in
original). As Burström points out the material turn that can be discerned
within archaeology, as well as social sciences as a whole, is not a return to an
empirical archaeology but rather a “theoretically well-founded research” in
which lessons from the post-processual period are recognised (Burström
2011:54). This is a vital observation as we need to appreciate that a turn to
more empirical perspective does not mean we should not try and reach
further than using materials to date, to explain providence and usage etc.
but we also have to appreciate the materials for what they are and that this is
also important. What is important to me is just this: things do not have to
have a symbolic meaning or cultural value to be important. Instead, they
can be important for what they are and the role they play.
Archaeologist Laurajane Smith has discussed materiality from a heritage
point of view and suggests that there is no such thing as heritage but that it is
just a discourse (Smith 2006:13). This is a trend that is highly noticeable
within the heritage literature (see, for example, Chouliaraki and Fairclough
1999, Fairclough 2003, Fairclough et al. 2008, Harrison et al. 2010, Benton
2010). Intangible values have been recognised and raised most prominently
by UNESCO’s adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003 where intangible cultural heritage is
described as for example “oral traditions, performing arts, social practices,
rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the
universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts” (UNESCO
website). This focus on the intangible heritage is a reaction against a long
prevailing thought in western heritage management, especially within its legal
and policy framework, of an intrinsic value of an object, place or practice
(Harrison and Schofield 2010:25). As part of a discourse of tangible heritage
Smith argues that instead of such a heavy emphasis on tangible heritage we
need to focus on the intangible, that it is in our practices that heritage really
lies, not in the objects themselves, hence suggesting that there is no such thing
as heritage (Smith 2006:13). Smith suggests, therefore, that there is nothing
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