Geographies of knowledge: transformation of research protocols in Latin American archaeologies

Abstract

This article aims at exploring knowledge geographies as a critical alternative to the history and social studies of science, which allows making visible the spatialities that intervene or emerge during the process of production, distribution and appropriation of knowledge. Knowledge geographies constitute a fertile field of analysis from which to approach archaeology as a practice which contributes to the transformation and reproduction of certain conceptions and spatial experiences among the general public. The analysis of two logics of spatial relation in archaeology, the so-called in situ and ex situ, allows us to see how knowledge geographies operate in this disciplinary field. Additionally, its helps identify the nature of the tensions which emerge today between the de-location and location of archaeological materialities. Finally, these tensions are eluded in the Latin- American context, where a process of transformation in the in situ/ex situ relations is at work, and with it, new geographies of archaeology come into view.