Colonial Institutions: Uses, Subversions, and Material Afterlives
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Colonial Institutions: Uses, Subversions, and Material Afterlives Laura McAtackney 1 & Russell Palmer 2
Published online: 21 July 2016 # European Union 2016
Abstract Archaeologically based explorations of colonialism or institutions are common case-studies in global historical archaeology, but the Bcolonial institution^—the role of institutions as operatives of colonialism—has often been neglected. In this thematic edition we argue that in order to fully understand the interconnected, global world one must explicitly dissect the colonial institution as an entwined, dual manifestation that is central to understanding both power and power relations in the modern world. Following Ann Laura Stoler, we have selected case studies from the Australia, Europe, UK and the USA which reveal that the study of colonial institutions should not be limited to the functional life of these institutions—or solely those that take the form of monumental architecture—but should include the long shadow of Bimperial debris^ (Stoler 2008) and immaterial institutions. Keywords Imperialism . Churches . Prisons . Schools . Power . Conformity . Subversion . Heritage
Introduction From island prisons in Australia and reservoirs of displacement in upstate New York to the material remnants of immaterial religious authorities in Malta and enforced ruination as border markers in North Greece, all these seemingly disparate case studies have one aspect in common: they are manifestations of colonial institutions. Studies of the
* Laura McAtackney [email protected] Russell Palmer [email protected]
1
Archaeology, Aarhus University, Moesgaard, Moesgaard Allé, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark
2
Department of Archaeology, UFo, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
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Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:471–476
colonial and the institutional are crucial to our conceptions of the modern world. They have been widely investigated over the last decades in archaeology (including Casella 2007; De Cunzo 1995; Gosden 2004), yet the entangled natures of Bcolonial institutions^ have rarely been explicitly considered. This thematic issue brings together researchers from Australia, Europe, and the US to explore the material residues of colonial institutions—be they monumental or ephemeral, of the recent or more distance past—and considers how they retain often contested and difficult meanings that persist long beyond their functional or intended use. We suggest that taken in tandem archaeologically based studies of colonial institutions reveal the complicity of these forms in shaping and controlling the modern world. In selecting the term Bcolonial institution,^ we have made a deliberate decision to focus on institutions that reside in colonial settings and in doing so we are provocatively questioning the temporal and material boundaries as to what this hybrid term can mean and include. Likewise, our subtitle—Buses, subversions and material afterlives^—explicitly engages with two key concepts: (i) the materiality of power dynamics inherent in studie
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