Conference on the Archaeology of Internment, Dublin July 2008

The_Historian · #1 (**permalink**) January 8th, 2008, 11:32 AM

Call for Papers: The Archaeology of Internment

Session for the 6th World Archaeological Congress, Dublin, 29 June – 4 July 2008

Greetings – Find below the outline for a session at World Archaeological Congress 6, upcoming in Dublin, Ireland, from 29 June to 4 July, 2008. http://www.ucd.ie/wac-6/ The organisers hope to produce a publication from this session.

If you are interested in taking part in this session please submit your proposal online http://www.ucd.ie/wac-6/ and send a concise abstract directly to adriantimothymyers@gmail.com or g.moshenska@ucl.ac.uk

The official deadline for submission is 22nd February 2008. We look forward to your contributions to what will certainly be an exciting and potentially controversial session.

This call for papers can also be accessed here for viewing or printing: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=df98j2rs_344v4v4mgv

Of course, do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.
Adrian & Gabriel

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Theme
Critical Technologies: The Making of the Modern World

Session
Archaeologies of Internment: Method and Theory for an Emerging Field

Lead Organizer 1
Adrian Myers, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (Canada)
adriantimothymyers@gmail.com
www.vhec.org

Lead Organizer 2
Gabriel Moshenska, University College London (United Kingdom)
g.moshenska@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract
Europe in 1945 was a landscape of camps. These distinctive sites of internment served as prisons, literally or effectively, for the displaced, demobbed, captured, persecuted, diseased, exiled, and hunted. Within a few years this landscape had vanished, leaving only traces and memorials. Internment is often a property of societies in transition; the ephemeral nature of the remains eliding their historical significance. This session examines the potential contribution of archaeological approaches to the study of internment on a global scale.

As archaeological methods are increasingly applied to the interpretation and management of sites of modern conflict, sub-fields begin to emerge. By bringing together papers on 'the archaeology of internment' we hope to increase our understanding of forced mass internment events; events that were and are deeply influenced by the emerging 'critical technologies' of the 20th and 21st centuries. The modern and industrial, and increasingly post-modern and digital, nature of conflict reverberates through the internment experience.

We invite papers on the material aspects of the relocation and confinement, typically without trial, of 'enemy aliens', ethnic minorities, political prisoners, displaced persons, prisoners of war, 'enemy combatants' and others. The sites of internment include concentration camps, death camps, prisoner of war camps, 'relocation centres', and others. Topics can include any geographic or temporal context including recent and current events. We anticipate contributions that report on field work, but also more theoretical pieces. The papers should be 5-10 minutes long, and should situate internment archaeology within one or more of the wider contexts of conflict archaeology, material culture studies, and contemporary and historical archaeology.