from the cultural essentialism that may be read into the previous sentence, the
binary set Westerner-Other—a dualism that is indeed seen by some in
inXexible terms—is more a powerful, imagined entity actually composed by
as many Others as Westerners deWning them (or the other way round).
Although this question will not be discussed in much detail, the power
which the knowledge of the colonies’ archaeology helped to create would
not only work at the level of the colonizer versus the colonized, a contrast
mediated by racial ideas, but other identities such as gender and class also
played a role in the creation of ‘Others’. Women and members of the working
class were the exception among archaeologists and were considered and
treated diVerently because of their alterity.
Colonial archaeologists were part of a diaspora formed by members of the
army, administrators, explorers, fortune hunters, and settlers. Yet, in this early
period there were also a few native 4 archaeologists. In this context the validity
of the concept of hybridity and mimicry, and the potential menace they posed
to colonial authority, will brieXy be explored below. Hybridity refers to the
creation of new transcultural forms, whereas mimicry alludes to the practice
by the colonized subjects of ‘mimicking’ the colonizers, converting or taking
the ‘oYcial’ view of themselves (Bhabha 1994). It can also be seen as an
attempt by the colonized to appropriate the discourse about the past pro-
duced by imperial archaeologists, to resist their attempts to be the only valid
interlocutors of the past of the colonies. Discourse, says Foucault, ‘transmits
and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it,
renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it’ (Foucault 1980a: 101).
Much has been written on hegemonic Western views. Research on resist-
ance to the Western archaeological understanding of the past has been
growing in recent years (see, for example, Abt 1996; Archibald 1993) but
very little can be found in the history of archaeology (see, as an exception,
Reid’s work (1985, 1992, 1997, 2002). It is arguably the case that, by their very
nature, dissenting voices are more diYcult to retrieve. Their recovery requires
very speciWc knowledge of acts of everyday resistance, of discontent and non-
compliance. Some relevant data may be locked in private papers, but toWnd it
requires an archival eVort which is beyond the scope of this volume. This is
undoubtedly one of the pending research questions to be addressed in the
historiography of the development of archaeology in the colonized world.
Resistance can be ambivalent. It may be found, for instance, in the form of the
4 I have decided to favour the word ‘native’ over ‘indigenous’. Both of these terms have
imperial, racist connotations which are inescapable. Yet, the decision by native Americans that
‘native’ was a more respectful way to refer to themselves in the 1960s suggests that it may be the
best word to employ in this book. Semantically, it also seems better to use the more neutral term
‘native’, born in the area, than ‘indigenous’, from a local race.
An Alternative Account 9