Australian Archaeological Association Conference 2011

The Sociality of Archaeology

The theme of the Australian Archaeological Association Conference (AAA 2011) touches on the various elements of our discipline that construct archaeology as a cultural and social undertaking in both its theory and practice. The conference will address issues such as the contemporary politics of archaeology, the place of indigenous perspectives in archaeological interpretation, the role of the public and the media in archaeology (and vice versa), how our theoretical perspectives have changed with our shifting understanding of science, technology and culture, and how our own global positioning within the discipline has affected the culture of archaeology and the archaeology of culture.

AAA 2011 will be held from 1 - 3 December 2011 at the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba, Queensland.

Keynote speaker

The keynote speaker for the 2011 AAA Conference is Professor Lynn Meskell, Director of the Stanford University Archaeology Center.

Lynn Meskell received a BA (Hons) First Class and the University Medal from the University of Sydney in 1994. She was awarded the Kings College scholarship from Cambridge University for her PhD in Archaeology which was completed in 1997. She held the Salvesen Junior Research Fellowship at New College, Oxford University from 1997 to 1999, before accepting a position at Columbia University in New York City , where she became Professor in 2005. From that time onwards, she has been Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University (USA) and Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). Her fieldwork has been conducted in South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Sicily, Cyprus, Greece, Australia and the Pacific.

To date, Professor Meskell has published over 75 journal articles and book chapters. In 1999, Professor Meskell founded the Journal of Social Archaeology. Her books and edited collections include Archaeology under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (1998, Routledge), Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class Etcetera in Ancient Egypt (1999, Blackwells), Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt: Material Biographies Past and Present (2004, Berg), Embedding Ethics (2005, Berg) and Cosmopolitan Archaeologies (2009, Duke UP). Her forthcoming book with Blackwell is entitled The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa.

Submit your proposal

We invite you to submit your proposal by 15 August 2011 (extended deadline).