Prof. Uzma Rizvi reflects on Archaeology in the recent issue of the Society for American Archaeology's The SAA Archaeological Record (May 2013)

"I love archaeology because it inspires me to understand the world around me with nuance.  I do not just have tea in my favorite mug: I know that in choosing each other, the mug and I have developed an intimate relationship rooted in the everyday. In  that choice, we have reinstated certain cultural and economic choices and changed others. I know that in the creation of that habitus we have or will let those choices merge into nothingness, into the visible affects of the vernacular, into just something we do every day—  and not every thing  in the everyday can always have meaning. In making that decision about the meaning  (or lack thereof) of  the everyday, there is a new plane of understanding between the mug and myself—  one in which we can take each other for granted, one that indexes a more intimate relationship.... It is precisely because I love archaeology that I define, deconstruct, and decolonize it...."

Read the complete text:   "I LOVE ARCHAEOLOGY BECAUSE . . ." The SAA Archaeological Record, vol. 13, no.3 (May 2013).  Scroll down to page 23.