Between academia, local communities, and labour: Archaeological practice and heritage in Turkey

This dissertation explores the history and politics of archaeological practice in Turkey based on a theoretical framework of memory studies. It addresses three main research themes: the development of archaeology as an academic discipline in Turkey, the relationship between local communities and archaeological teams in the field, and the landscape of labour in archaeological fieldwork in Turkey. Exploring the ways in which archaeological knowledge has been produced, narrated, and instrumentalized, this dissertation contributes to an alternative historical account of archaeology in Turkey by thickening that narrative with otherwise silent voices from the local communities who are involved in archaeological excavations. This research employs multi and cross-disciplinary methodologies including oral history, social network analysis, and archival research conducted in fifteen different institutions located in Turkey, Germany, UK, and the US. Over thirty-three hours of oral history interviews were recorded with thirty-eight participants which represent a diverse body of practitioners of archaeological fieldwork in Turkey. These interviews are further analyzed and contextualized in juxtaposition with the archival records.