Conocimiento y acción en la Arqueología Aplicada. Knowledge and action in Applied Archaeology

Abstract

For more than fifteen years we have been witnessing the birth of a type of archaeology that has become disconnected from its traditional academic environment, and its conversion into a ‘liberal’ profession, alongside the definitive decline of the neo-positivist paradigm and an increase in political concern for heritage management. From within the field of archaeological investigation, this process is not free of epistemological and axiological problems, although it is also a process susceptible to be studied from non-archaeological perspectives (philosophical, sociological and political). The multiple aspects presented by the problem of the ‘divorce’between management and investigation may be compared to problems that go beyond the field of archaeology, where we may turn to old philosophical debates. In this paper we will attempt to lay down the theoretical foundations for our proposal: an Applied Archaeology that attempts to overcome dichotomies that paralyze both knowledge and action, and which allow for a type of archaeological heritage management that is integrated within the discursive practice of the system, but which goes beyond its immediate conditioning factors.