Call for papers
** New deadline for submissions April 30, 2019
Date & Cost
Oct 3-5, 2019; The conference is free of charge. Participants are expected to cover their travel costs, accommodation and meals.
Venue
House of Culture, 12 Em. Vernardou str. Rethymno, Crete
Organisers
COST Action Archaeological practices and knowledge work in the digital environment (ARKWORK) (www.arkwork.eu) in collaboration with the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete.
The study of archaeological practices and knowledge production has been around for a few decades and has given fruitful insights into our field of work, archaeology. However, the circumstances of the practices of archaeology have changed radically in the past decades, and we want to explore the impact of these changes on methods used for studying those practices.
Archaeological practices have changed with regard to several factors:
- Methodological changes – an increasing digitalization both regarding documentation and recording, i.e. acquiring data, as well as in repository and dissemination of data. And following these changes new issues connected to accessibility, standardization, etc. arise.
- Material changes – the emergence of new forms and scales of material evidence (for example in Contemporary Archaeology).
- Scientific changes connected to the methodological changes, such as big data, refined dating analysis (Bayesian analysis), as well as a more refined and nuanced archaeological knowledge.
- Interpretative changes connected to new perspectives and possibilities generated by these methodological changes, such as 3D-modelling and increased accessibility to data.
- Economic changes, due to increased economic pressure in developer funded archaeology as well as decreasing funds for research especially in economically strained countries.
- Political changes – as the political environment in Europe is changing and archaeology and heritage in places is used as a political tool.
- Changes originating in other disciplines, for example the recent Anthropocene debate originating in geology or the various ways natural sciences is beginning to influence archaeology in a big way (and arguably archaeology will influence it back),
All these changes have a profound impact and provide new possibilities for the study of the forms of production of archaeological knowledge (see Huvila & Huggett 2018, Taylor et al 2018, Huvila 2018, Walcek Averett et al 2016, Opitz & Johnson 2015, Chapman & Wylie 2015, Internet Archaeology Issues 43, 44, 46, Open Archaeology Issues 1,4).
The aim of the conference is to discuss and answer this key question: Given the shifting grounds, how can we best apprehend the current state of the field, the ways in which it is changing, and where it is heading in the future?
We invite presentations on relevant topics, for example the following themes:
- Observing or analysing archaeological knowledge production through approaches such as Science and Technology Studies, Ethnography of Knowledge Production and other relevant methodologies and perspectives, focusing on:
- Archaeological fieldwork: excavation, recording etc.
- Archaeological analysis and post-excavation processing
- Changing methods of archaeological fieldwork and analysis
- Presentation and reception of archaeological knowledge
- Economic aspects of archaeological knowledge work
- Innovative new methods for the study of archaeological knowledge production, or analysis of existing methods
- Concepts and theoretical trends of archaeology as seen through a different disciplinary lens, such as:
- Anthropology
- Social sciences
- Information Sciences
- Natural sciences
- History of arts
- Explorations of the practices of knowledge production in the relationship between archaeology and society, focusing on:
- Relations between archaeology and local communities
- Relations between archaeology and its publics
- Relations between archaeologists and new forms of technology
- The politics of archaeology: archaeology as a political tool
- Practices of archaeology in post-colonial settings
- Citizen science – the dynamics of participatory engagement
- Reflexive methods
These themes and approaches are suggestions and presentations may focus on other relevant topics.
Submissions
The conference invites submissions of extended abstracts of work related to the conference themes discussing evidence-based, theoretical and conceptual research from both researchers and practitioners coming from different disciplinary backgrounds including but not limited to archaeology, heritage studies, sociology, museology, information studies, computer science, anthropology, education and management studies.
Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the international programme committee and ranked on the basis of the originality of the research presented in relation to conference themes, clarity of presentation, the quality of the contribution made by the research, the validity and rigour of the methodology chosen, the significance of the results presented and the overall contribution to the understanding of archaeological practices in a changing world.
All accepted extended abstracts will be published as online conference proceedings at COST-ARKWORK website at www.arkwork.eu
An extended abstract should contain following information:
- Keywords (upto 5) describing the topic of the presentation
- Introduction with a problem statement and/or research questions
- Methods used in the study (when applicable)
- Findings and argument
- Conclusions (including eventual generalisations, implications and/or recommendations
- References following the the Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html In-text citations should follow the Author-Date style.
Extended abstracts should be submitted as a Word-document and contain between 1000 and 1200 words (excluding references). Do not use any formatting in the text apart from italics. Assigning an appropriate topic areas helps to ensure that your submission is reviewed by appropriate experts in your area of research. All submissions should be anonymous. No page should identify the authors or their affiliations. Authors who cite their previous work should refer to themselves in the third person, e.g. “Newton and Einstein (1905) demonstrated that…”.
How to submit
Please use Easychair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=osg2019 for all submissions. Proposals submitted, for instance, by email will not be considered for the conference.
New deadline for submissions April 30, 2019
Due to a number of polite requests from the colleagues, we extended the deadline for submissions until April 30, 2019. Authors will be informed of the results of the peer-review at the latest by mid-June, 2019
Bibliography
- Chapman, R. & Wylie, A. (eds). 2015. Material evidence, learning from archaeological practice. Routledge.
- Huvila. I. (ed.). 2018. Archaeology and Archaeological Information in the Digital Society. Routledge.
- Huvila, I. & Hugget, J. 2018. Archaeological Practices, Knowledge Work and Digitalisation. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 1(1), pp. 88–100, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.6
- Internet Archaeology Issues 43, 44, 46
- Taylor, J. S. et al. 2018. ‘The Rise of the Machine’: the impact of digital tablet recording in the field at Çatalhöyük. Internet Archaeology 47. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.47.1
- Open Archaeology Issues 1, 4
- Opitz, R & Johnson, T. 2015. Interpretation at the Controller’s Edge: Designing Graphical User Interfaces for the Digital Publication of the Excavations at Gabii (Italy). Open Archaeology 2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2016-0001
- Walcek Averett, E. et al.(eds). 2016. Mobilizing the past for a digital future – The Potential of Digital Archaeology. Digital Press at The University of North Dakota.