REFLEXIVITY IN PRACTICE
Kathryn Rountree
My interest in Çatalhöyük emerged as a result of my anthropological research in Malta, which has examined a range of contemporary interpretations and agendas which have been brought to bear on Malta’s Neolithic temples. In particular, that work focused on two distinct discourses — those of archaeology and Goddess feminism — although local popular interpretations and interests, specifically those of the tourist industry, artists and hunters were also considered.
With this background it was an exciting prospect to have the opportunity to undertake similar research at Çatalhöyük during the 2003 excavation season. In the same way that Malta’s Neolithic temples (which are 3000 years younger than Çatalhöyük) have been employed symbolically for a variety of contemporary nationalistic, spiritual, economic and scientific purposes, both by local people and by foreigners, I discovered, so has the site of Çatalhöyük. Just as Malta’s ‘fertility Goddess’ has been variously commoditized, shunned, embraced or ignored, so has Çatal¬höyük’s ‘mother Goddess’. The biggest difference between the research contexts of Malta and Çatalhöyük is that at Çatal¬höyük the issue of multivocality is very much in the open and is explicitly incorporated within the wider research design of the current archaeologists. Reflexivity is employed as a deliberate strategy in the construction of archaeological knowledge; indeed it is the hallmark of the method currently being used at Çatalhöyük and a great deal has been written on the topic. (See chapters by project director Ian Hodder and project members in Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: the Example at Çatalhöyük edited by Ian Hodder, 2000. (Available from Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford, OX1 1HN, +44-(0)1865-241249; http://www.oxbowbooks. com).
I spent three and a half weeks at Çatalhöyük in July 2003. While there I had many informal conversations with those working on the project, talked with fellow social anthropologists at the site, read material on the site data base and from the site’s bookshelves, and interviewed Ian Hodder. At Hodder’s invitation I prepared the text for a two-panel display with help from Sophie Lamb to be installed in the Visitor Centre interpreting the site from the perspective of the Goddess visitors. This text includes many quotations from the site visitors’ book (see Fig. 32).
Figure 32. Goddess Community panels in the foreground in the site Visitors’ Centre
My initial reactions from my visit to Çatalhöyük are that there are three factors which heavily impact on what archaeologists do and do not do with respect to maintaining reflexive practices:
- constant pressure of time;
- impact of a large, complex and hierarchical team structure;
- academic competitiveness.
It appears that 2003 was rather unusual in that there were many new project members and a new phase of the work was beginning. This may well account for the virtual absence of large-scale discussion or debate over interpretation this season. However I think that two factors mentioned above — the pressure of time and the team composition with its diverse concerns and levels and types of experience — also contribute to the slump of reflexive practices. I should say that many discussions about the interpretation of archaeological features and finds did occur on site as small groups were excavating in particular areas and during the site tours and priority tours, however these discussions never, to my knowledge, spilled over into wider debates amongst project participants when they were off the site.