Modern Scotland: ScARF Panel Report Images © as noted in the text ScARF Summary Modern Panel Document March 2012 Modern Scotland: ScARF Panel Report ScARF Summary Modern Panel Report Chris Dalglish and Sarah Tarlow (Editors and Panel Co-Chairs) With panel contributions from: Rowan Julie Brown, David Caldwell, David Cranstone, Chris Dalglish, Althea Davies, Piers Dixon, Aonghus MacKechnie, Morgana McCabe, Tony Pollard, Andrew Spicer, Sarah Tarlow For contributions, images, feedback, critical comment and participation at workshops: Donald Adamson, Tom Addyman, Derek Alexander, Steven Boyle, Stuart Campbell, Dave Cowley, Clive Fenton, Shannon Fraser, David Gaimster, Michael Given, Miles Glendinning, Kevin Grant, Neil Gregory, Alex Hale, Candice Hatherley, John Hume, Charles McKean, Roger Mercer, Alison Morrison- Low, Jen Novotny, John Pickin, Tanja Romankiewicz, Katinka Stentoft Dalglish and Mark Watson ii Modern Scotland: ScARF Panel Report Executive Summary Why research the archaeology of the modern past in Scotland? Researching the modern past is a highly relevant endeavour. Exploring the past provides a long- term view of contemporary lives: exposing and seeking to understand the genealogy of contemporary society. Research into the modern past provides a critical perspective on the present, elucidating the origins of current ways of being and of relating to others and the surrounding world. Research into the modern past helps people to understand how things came to be as they are today and, in providing this historical perspective, it helps them to better reflect upon the future they should work towards. It might be asked: why is archaeological research needed to help understand the modern past? What does archaeology add to an understanding of a period so well covered by documentary history? A (common) response to this question is to examine the biases and gaps in the documentary record and to explore how archaeology can address those biases and fill those gaps. Documents are created by specific people for particular purposes, portraying the world from a certain perspective, recording certain things and not otherswhile ignoring others as unimportant or irrelevant. Archaeology is no more objective, but it can provide an alternative perspective on such a well-documented period. This response is only a partial answer to the question and there is another, more crucial point to be made: archaeology is not just the study of the past through its material remains, it is the study of the relationship between people and their material world. Life is not lived in abstraction from the world – people think and act in and through the world. A sense of self, and relationships with other people and with other living things, are created, maintained and transformed through engagements with the world which humans inhabit. Archaeology studies the mutual dependence of people and the material world, the ways in which one makes and re-makes the other. Seen in this light, the question becomes: how can people hope to understand the history of modern life without the archaeological perspective? Panel Task and Remit The task of the Modern Panel is to produce a framework for archaeological research investigating the modern past in Scotland. The broad aim of research in the Modern Panel’s field is to achieve knowledge and understanding of modernity (modern life, modern society, the modern world) and, in particular, of the ways in which the modern world has emerged from and been transformed through engagement with the material world. The term ‘modern’ refers here both to an historical era and to particular constellations of relationships and ways of being and living. Our basic definition of the modern era is the period from the 16th century to the present. However, the panel have consciously chosen to see the boundaries of the period as ill-defined and porous, to be defined in a contingent manner, as appropriate to the material and the questions and issues under discussion. Where appropriate, the remit of the panel will extend back into the medieval period, and connections with the work of the Medieval Panel are encouraged. The end point of the modern past is defined as similarly fluid and contingent – the remit of the Panel extends well into the period within living memory and any hard-and-fast division between past and present has been resisted. The panel’s definition of archaeology is similarly fluid and contingent. Archaeology is not imagined here as a closed discipline characterised by the application of distinctive methods and techniques (e.g. archaeological excavation). Rather, archaeology is defined more broadly as: 1) the study of the past through its material remains; and 2) the study of relationships between people and their material worlds. The modern past can be and is studied in these ways by scholars working within iii Modern Scotland: ScARF Panel Report other disciplines and traditions and the editors have sought to connect the relevant disciplines – Panel members, for example, represent the disciplines of archaeology, architectural history, history and palaeo-ecology, and many panel members have interests transcending disciplinary boundaries. Our overall direction of travel has been to produce a framework which allows individual researchers to articulate their own work in relation to three key co-ordinates: 1. the humanity of the modern world; 2. the materiality of the modern world; and 3. the relevance of the modern past. The ultimate goal of research in this field is to provide critical insight into what it meant and what it means to be human in the modern world (humanity). The end towards which researchers collectively work is an understanding of self and society in the modern era. More particularly, given that this is an archaeological research framework, it is the ways in which modern ways of being and living have emerged through engagement with the material world that are of interest (materiality). And, as explorations of the genealogy of the present, research in this field is and should be defined by the perspective it offers on the present (relevance). To provide a link between this broad agenda for research and the individual activities and projects through which research into the modern past is pursued, the Panel has defined eight themes, each representing a different perspective on the modern world. The first two themes – Reformations, Global Localities – provide opportunities to reflect upon the major narratives of modern history and the ways in which archaeology can contribute to or challenge those narratives. These themes are intended to encourage reflection on the ways in which modern Scottish history has been and should be written. The next two themes – the Modern Person, Nation and State – place particular emphasis on questions of humanity in the modern world. They are intended to encourage reflection on the nature of self and society and the ways in which archaeological research has, and could, inform our understanding of these issues. The three themes which follow next – People and Things, People and Places, People and Landscapes – take particular questions of materiality (the interdependence of people and the material world) as their starting point. The final theme – Modern Past, Modern Present – looks in on modern-world archaeology from the perspective of relevance. How can the relevance and resonance of the modern past in the present be better understood? What are the politics and ethics of the modern past? How is research into this past communicated to the public? To what extent is research in this field pursued in collaboration with the public and how can the issues of public participation and collaboration be better reflected on? Future Research The main recommendations of the panel report can be summarised under five key headings: HUMANITY Researchers and research funders should seek to develop and to encourage work which critically reflects upon and actively engages with the contribution it makes or might make to the ultimate goal of developing a deeper and more critical understanding of self and society in the modern world, and of the relationships between humanity and the natural world. iv Modern Scotland: ScARF Panel Report MATERIALITY Research in this field should be encouraged to go beyond questions of the material (its identification, recording, and characterisation) to questions of materiality (understanding the relationships between people and the material world). Empirical studies are important but they are the means to an end, not the end itself. Decisions about what to study and how are often taken without due consideration to the question of why. Instrumentalist thinking, which focuses on the means rather than the ends, should routinely be challenged with the question ‘but to what ends?’ This framework seeks to help engender that practice by providing ways of articulating individual pieces of work with broader themes and questions of meaning and relevance. RELEVANCE Routine and critical consideration should be given to the public relevance of research. Knowledge of the past is of value in and of itself. However, a principal aim of its study should be to normalise the conscious and critical consideration of present-day meanings and the potential implications and uses of such knowledge. As well as researching the modern past, a better understanding should be sought of the relevance and resonance of this past in the present and the ways in which understandings of the recent past inform decisions about the present and the future. It should also be an aim to encourage and to inform dialogue about the communication of knowledge and understanding of, and about modes of public engagement with, all periods of the past. COLLABORATION Perhaps above all other periods of the past, the modern past is a field of enquiry where there is great potential benefit in the collaboration of disciplines. Researchers of the modern past should seek to develop new ways of working which bring disciplines together to produce new insights into the character and history of modern Scotland.