Book Talk: Why Those Who Shovel Are Silent: Archaeology, Labor, and the Production of Knowledge in the Middle East
Wednesday, March 31, 12:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Register for this free event HERE
Please join the University Press of Colorado and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley to discuss and celebrate Dr. Allison Mickel's new book, Why Those Who Shovel Are Silent: A History of Local Archaeological Knowledge and Labor.
For more than 200 years, archaeological sites in the Middle East have been excavated, sifted, sorted, and saved by local community members who, in turn, developed expertise in excavation and interpretation. Yet their perspectives have often been missing from the new knowledge that is produced through archaeological research. Mickel's new book, based on six years of ethnographic and archival research, describes how archaeological laborers negotiate these conditions in research projects in Jordan and Turkey. Her research not only sheds new light on the history and politics of archaeology, but also illuminates pressing issues surrounding labor and economics in the Middle East.
Dr. Mickel will be joined in conversation with Dr. Benjamin Porter, associate professor of Middle Eastern Archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley; and Dr. Ian Hartshorn, assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno.
