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The World Is What It Is: The Role of Subjectivity and Personal Experience in Global Historical Archaeologies

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Abstract

The 2013 Society for Historical Archaeology conference plenary session (sponsored by the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology) was held on the themes of “globalization, immigration, transformation.” Representatives of all six permanently inhabited continents presented brief case studies derived from their work on those continents, before engaging in discussion of the conference themes from their different, complex, and multilayered international perspectives. The present issue of Historical Archaeology offers more detailed case studies from the original speakers (in one case with a coauthor). This introduction seeks to place these multifaceted approaches within a framework foregrounding the role of personal experience as an explanatory approach to understanding the differences within a global historical archaeology that is not just global and multicultural in theme, but also in practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

    Alasdair Brooks

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Brooks, A. The World Is What It Is: The Role of Subjectivity and Personal Experience in Global Historical Archaeologies. Hist Arch 47, 1–9 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03376885

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