Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
What is 'cultural appropriation'? Is it the same as 'cultural exchange/transmission'? Is it synonymous with 'cultural misrepresentation' and 'cultural offence'? How does it relate to assimilation, acculturation and diffusion? How can and should archaeologists contribute to debates over cultural appropriation in academia and the media? Is it a modern phenomenon tied to colonialism and globalisation, a far older historical phenomenon we can chart back into pre(history), or a timeless natural behaviour shared by all humanity? Reflecting on recent online discussions, Professor Howard Williams shares his perspectives on this as a mortuary archaeologist and the potential roles, past and ongoing, of archaeologists as practitioners of cultural appropriation, enablers of cultural appropriation, and critics and voices against cultural appropriation. This specifically relates to the archaeology of death's theories, methods, practices and ethics, as well as the public archaeology of death as a field of evaluation and critique of public engagements with death and the dead through archaeologically derived mortuary contexts and human remains.
Key sources:
Jackson, J.B. 2021. On cultural appropriation. Journal of Folklore Research 58(1): 77-122. DOI:10.2979/jfolkrese.58.1.04
Lenard, P.T. and Balint, P. 2020. What is (the wrong of) cultural appropriation? Ethnicities 20(2): doi.org/10.1177/1468796819866498
Young, J.O. 2008. Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. Oxford: Blackwell: http
s://researchgate.net/publication/288810938_Cultural_Appropriation_and_the_Arts
Williams, H. and Giles, M. (eds) 2016. Archaeologists and the Dead, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, H., Wills-Eve, B. and Osborne, J. (eds) 2019. The Public Archaeology of Death, Sheffield: Equinox.
What is 'cultural appropriation'? Is it the same as 'cultural exchange/transmission'? Is it synonymous with 'cultural misrepresentation' and 'cultural offence'? How does it relate to assimilation, acculturation and diffusion? How can and should archaeologists contribute to debates over cultural appropriation in academia and the media? Is it a modern phenomenon tied to colonialism and globalisation, a far older historical phenomenon we can chart back into pre(history), or a timeless natural behaviour shared by all humanity? Reflecting on recent online discussions, Professor Howard Williams shares his perspectives on this as a mortuary archaeologist and the potential roles, past and ongoing, of archaeologists as practitioners of cultural appropriation, enablers of cultural appropriation, and critics and voices against cultural appropriation. This specifically relates to the archaeology of death's theories, methods, practices and ethics, as well as the public archaeology of death as a field of evaluation and critique of public engagements with death and the dead through archaeologically derived mortuary contexts and human remains.
Key sources:
Jackson, J.B. 2021. On cultural appropriation. Journal of Folklore Research 58(1): 77-122. DOI:10.2979/jfolkrese.58.1.04
Lenard, P.T. and Balint, P. 2020. What is (the wrong of) cultural appropriation? Ethnicities 20(2): doi.org/10.1177/1468796819866498
Young, J.O. 2008. Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. Oxford: Blackwell: http
s://researchgate.net/publication/288810938_Cultural_Appropriation_and_the_Arts
Williams, H. and Giles, M. (eds) 2016. Archaeologists and the Dead, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, H., Wills-Eve, B. and Osborne, J. (eds) 2019. The Public Archaeology of Death, Sheffield: Equinox.
