Session: #372

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
The archaeology of material culture, bodies and landscapes
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each

Title & Content

Title:
Frontiers of motion? Borderlands as zones of communication and mobility
Content:
Borders and borderlands has become an interdisciplinary focus, particularly in geopolitical discussions. Archaeology too has traditionally been interested in how and when materials, people, ideas, and artifact and architectural styles moved between regions, as well as on the socio-political impact of these movements. This focus on how things spread from one space to another led to the creation of discrete archaeological regions separated by borders. Recent theoretical approaches have reimagined these borders as permeable, discarded "pots=people" explanations, and developed concepts of mobility. However, the communities that lived within borderlands remain under-explored, as do communication and movement within these areas. Moreover, some spaces, especially those peripheral to large, urban centers, or outside the boundaries of infrastructure and development projects, are marginalized by unintentional biases built into archaeological research. The motion or fluidity of borders themselves needs development from archaeological perspectives, so that archaeologists can contribute to larger geopolitical debates by allowing heritage to reflect potential futures.

This session explores the role of border areas as interaction zones, comprising communities with their own traditions and structures. Can we identify "crossroads communities"? Can we see the movement of borders over time, or communities shifting from being at crossroads to being within cores? What were the long-term effects of movements of people, materials, and ideas on communities within the borderlands? How many peripheral areas were also borderlands, and how has the "marginal area" label muddled our understanding of social, political, and economic developments?
Keywords:
borders; interaction; movement; crossroad communities
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no

Organisers

Main organiser:
Ph.D. Roderick Salisbury (Austria) 1
Co-organisers:
Dr. Szilvia Fábián (Hungary) 2
Szilvia Guba (Hungary) 3
Affiliations:
1. University of Vienna
2. Hungarian National Museum
3. Kubinyi Ferenc Museum