Arqueología y Globalización. El problema de la definición del “otro” en la Postmodernidad Archaeology and Globalization. The problem on the definition of the “other” in Post-modernity

Abstract

This text has two aims: first, to analyze how Archaeology helped to construct social identity in Modernity. Second, to make clear how it contributed to the legitimation of the globalization discourse. It is defended that Archaeology is a non-inocent discourse, apparently related to groups of the past, but affecting in a direct (and destructive) way to all those groups in the present that do not belong to Modernity. The definition of the “other” is an universal mechanism to define the “us” in all the cultures. Therefore, it is always ethnocentric mechanism, but in our culture it has a destructive effect, as our technological capacity and an expansive demand transforms that conviction in a death threat for the last oral societies of our planet. It is defended that Archaeology supports globalization and it is asked whether it is possible to practice an Archaeology which doesn’t support it.