Archaeology of Resistance

Alfredo González-Ruibal was formerly Assistant Professor in the Department of Prehistory, Complutense University of Madrid. He is now an archaeologist with the Institute of Heritage Studies (Incipit) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), which is a group of over fifty people focusing on the study of cultural heritage as a scientific problem. González-Ruibal is the editor of Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity (2013), book of essays from a diverse array of archaeologists who have dealt in one way or another with modernity, including scholars from non-Anglophone countries who have approached the issue in original ways during recent years, as well as contributors from other fields who engage in a creative dialogue with archaeology and the work of archaeologists.

[A] remarkable book that, in keeping with the title, defies and indeed resists easy classification. . . . Materiality is what this book is about, and it serves as the lens through which to achieve a deeper understanding—and not just a thicker description—of the multiplicity and complexity of resistance and state power. . . . [T]his is an outstanding book that not only offers a rich, diachronic account of a region that is not well studied at all, but that most of all makes an original contribution to debates of resistance and state formation; it also vividly underscores the rich potential of archaeological material culture studies.

• TABLE OF CONTENTSAcknowledgements.Introduction.Outline of the book.Chapter 1. Time and materiality.1.1. Archaeological ethnographies.1.2. Archaeologies of resistance.1.3. The Archaeology of Borderlands1.4. Time.1.5. Materiality.Chapter 2. Ecology of a shatter zone.2.1. Landscapes.2.2. States.2.3. Deep rurals and peasants.2.4. Bandits, missionaries and travelers.Chapter 3. Direct action against the state: the Gumuz.3.1. Resisting the state north of the Blue Nile. 3.2. The enemy’s point of view: origin myths, things and knowledge.3.3. Making a community of equals: technology, consumption, exchange.3.4. Bodies of resistance.3.5. A sense of danger.Chapter 4. Between domination and resistance: the Bertha.4.1. Memories.4.2. A fractured identity. 4.3. Double belief: Between paganism and Islam.4.4. Double materiality.4.5. Double performance.Chapter 5. Of mimicry and Mao.5.1. The making of a subaltern people. 5.2. Invisibility and hybridity.5.3. The gender of resistance.5.4. A space for resistance.5.5. Remembering the forest.Epilogue and ConclusionsReferences.Index.About the Author.