Complicating the nation state: transcending the trope of nationalism

Over the past three decades a series of timely publications have mapped the relationship between archaeology and the nation state. This vast literature has spotlighted not only how our practice of discursively assembling objects inherited from the past has been complicit in the creation of cultural lineages (Shnirelman Reference Shnirelman, Hartley, Yazicioğlu and Smith2008; Reference Shnirelman2005) and the legitimation of colonial agendas (McNiven and Russel Reference McNiven and Russel2005; Meskell Reference Meskell2012; Smith Reference Smith2004), but also how seemingly objective analytical tools, theories and cultural categories are politically imbued (Trigger Reference Trigger2006; Hodder Reference Hodder1991; Ucko Reference Ucko1995; Tishkov Reference Tishkov1997) and continue to reify ethnic boundaries and instantiate national sovereignties (Plets et al. Reference Plets, Konstantinov, Soenov and Robinson2013). Popularly investigated through the lens of modernity (Schnapp, Shanks and Tiews Reference Schnapp, Shanks and Tiews2004; Thomas Reference Thomas2004; Hamilakis Reference Hamilakis2007), the focus on the intersections between archaeology and the nation state has popularly centred around archaeology's role in producing historical ‘proof’ mythologizing an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson Reference Anderson1983). As such, a dominant theme in literature has been, in analogy with Hobsbawm's (Reference Hobsbawm1993, 63) widely cited metaphor, the conceptualization of archaeologists as poppy growers complicit in providing the raw material for asserting the (il)legibility of the right to statehood.

There is no doubt that constructing culturally meaningful heritage out of inherently ambiguous data is one of archaeology's central disciplinary outcomes, ultimately predisposing it to politicization in the process of identity production. However, I believe the political entanglements of archaeology are subtler and, as Lynn Meskell already commented in 2002, ‘more complex, nuanced, and less deterministic’ (Meskell Reference Meskell2002, 287). Recent research by heritage ethnographers (Bendix Reference Bendix and Müller2013; Meskell et al. Reference Meskell, Liuzza, Bertacchini and Saccone2014; Luke and Kersel Reference Luke and Kersel2013) has brought the intricate political entanglements of cultural heritage into the international limelight, underlining that heritage management is implicated by the nation state's nationalist and non-nationalist interests, which range from neoliberal marketization of culture to normalizing (geo)political power structures favouring certain socio-economic elites and agendas.

Despite important work investigating the state's diverse ‘past-presencing’ (Macdonald Reference Macdonald2013) project, today, research tracing the politics of archaeology still predominantly investigates the impact of the nation state through the lens of nationalism (Kohl, Kozelsky and Nachman Reference Kohl, Kozelsky and Nachman2008; Mikhailov Reference Mikhailov2013; Hare Reference Hare2015). Similarly, in contributions to the discussion article ‘Is archaeology still the project of nation states?’ – published in the last issue of Archaeological dialogues – most authors equate politicization primarily with issues of national boundaries, ethnic identities and national sovereignty (Brück and Nilsson Stutz Reference Brück and Nilsson Stutz2016; Prescott Reference Prescott2016; Diachenko Reference Diachenko2016; Popa Reference Popa2016). The language and discourse in these discussion pieces is ultimately not so different from pioneering literature (Silberman Reference Silberman1989; Diaz-Andreu and Champion Reference Diaz-Andreu and Champion1996; Kohl and Fawcett Reference Kohl and Fawcett1995; Dietler Reference Dietler1994) of the 1980s and 1990s spotlighting the role of archaeology in producing selective national myths. By continuing to concentrate on the paradigm of nationalism, the influence of the constructed political entity that is the state has remained largely out of the academic limelight, despite important developments in the social sciences reminding us to transcend the issue of nationalism in sociopolitical appraisals (Slaughter Reference Slaughter1997; Gupta Reference Gupta2012; Mitchell Reference Mitchell and Steinmeltz1999; Wimmer and Glick Schiller Reference Wimmer and Glick Schiller2002). Some authors in last issue's discussion piece (Prescott Reference Prescott2016; Schlanger Reference Schlanger2016; Sanders Reference Sanders2016) underlined the importance of the state. Unfortunately, these timely papers stayed on the surface in discussing the complexities of statecraft, and how archaeology is complicit in crafting institutional landscapes while creating governable subjects adhering to convenient regimes of truth and power structures. I believe that only by addressing the imbricated nature of the nation state can we fully answer the key question of last issue's discussion article. Instead of solely focusing on nationality, this paper will equally address archaeology's intersection with governmentality, a term coined by Michel Foucault (Reference Foucault, Burchell, Gordon and Miller1991) describing the ‘governing’ process of modern states, who through a suite of technologies of rule (bureaucracies, statistics, education . . .) create governable subjects habitually adhering to specific power structures and regimes of truth.

Charting the impact of the state on archaeology is not an entirely new interest. Especially archaeologists interested in the nexus of archaeology and indigenous peoples in Western settler societies have previously mapped the impact of legal frameworks on archaeological epistemologies (Zimmerman Reference Zimmerman1996; Watkins Reference Watkins2003; Patterson Reference Patterson1999) and the government's use of archaeology and cultural resource management (CRM) in the selective management of identities (Smith Reference Smith2004). However, this interrelation between state and archaeological practice is often seen as a straightforward universal causality where the written rules of the game simply trickle down and influence the archaeological subject (i.e. archaeologists of various types) and broader society. In reality, this internalization process is more complex, and local mechanisms and subjectivities define how legal frameworks are put into practice and are reproduced by practitioners on the ground. Archaeologists not only are shaped by a regime but also culturally reproduce the nation state's verticality (i.e. the state being above society; Ferguson and Gupta Reference Ferguson and Gupta2002). By delving into these intricate social relationships, institutional cultures and bureaucratic technologies that define heritage governance, this paper will investigate how archaeologists are inescapably engaged in the process of state building. As such this paper not only discloses the need for future research on the subtlety of ‘heritage statecraft’, but also captions how archaeology can assist us in unravelling the sociocultural production of the state and the underlying ‘subjective dynamic that produces and reproduces the state as objects of fear and attachment’ (Aretxaga Reference Aretxaga2003, 399, emphasis added).

By drawing on personal experience as an archaeological ethnographer (Meskell Reference Meskell2005) in Russia and Belgium, this paper aims to capture how seemingly benign systems of bureaucracy and taken-for-granted engagements with heritage institutions shape archaeological heritage practice on the ground and entangle the archaeologist with the nation state. A first example will trace the impact of the state in the West through everyday procedurals. Previous employment in academia (Ghent University) and CRM, and an appointment as a member of the executive board of the Forum for Flemish Archaeology (2012–14),Footnote ¹ have enabled me to contextualize the impact of bureaucratic structures and procedures on archaeology in Flanders (Belgium). In a second – more dramatic – example, the impact of institutional structures created by a highly centralized authoritarian state will be mapped. Extensive ethnographic fieldwork with heritage practitioners and indigenous communities in Russia lay at the basis of this second case study.

The constitutive nature of bureaucratic heritage procedures will be explored by specifically tracing how administrative documents at the heart of archaeological praxis (permits, databases, quality standards . . .) produce embodied ritualized practices (Hull Reference Hull2012; Riles Reference Riles and Riles2006) that habituate new orthodoxies and complex power relations. A central analytical tool in this paper will be the archaeological permit or licence. Permitting in the heritage context (whether an excavation permit or power to influence construction permits) not only provides an archaeologist with power to execute a restricted activity. A permit also constrains the agency of the applicant/holder vis-à-vis the state and entangles him in a series of responsibilities and requirements. Ultimately, the process of requesting forms, issuing licences to subjects and providing proof through a documented medium constructs political subjects adhering to certain forms of sociality and hierarchies.

This focus on theories of the state and governmentality does not, however, mean that in our appraisals of the particular relationships between archaeology and the nation state we should adhere to a state-centred analytic framework. Just as nation and state are popularly used in a conjoined form, from a social perspective nationalism and statehood are inextricably connected phenomenological realities and both are intrinsically produced through practices of power and discourse. Both state and nation are allied, and in studying the intersections between archaeology and the nation state processes of national identification and the creation of governable subjects are never far removed from each other and should be studied concurrently.

Towards an ethnography of heritage bureaucracy: institutional survival and the instantiation of sovereignty through documentation

Bureaucracy is everywhere. The modernist desire for rational government (Scott Reference Scott1998) and repetitive day-to-day engagement with procedures and objects signifying rules and laws has ensured that across the world archaeologists have become enmeshed in an unclear web of agencies, official inspectors and procedures. Rules and documentary proof are such an intrinsic part of our everyday practices that they not only structure our epistemologies, but also have caused us to become blind to the subtle but powerful forms of political domination that underlie them. Max Weber, whose ideas about bureaucracy inspired many European nation states, was convinced that our innate desire for order and high rationality would eventually objectify our bureaucratic systems of government, ultimately giving rise to independent officials, dehumanized rules and apolitical procedures. However, over the years a variety of scholars from across the social sciences (Foucault Reference Foucault, Burchell, Gordon and Miller1991; Gupta Reference Gupta2012; Ferguson Reference Ferguson1990; Scott Reference Scott1998) have theorized the politicized nature of bureaucracy and its multifaceted impact on perpetuating the modern state. Their ethnographic gaze has specifically drawn attention to the multitude of bureaucratic technologies – ranging from permits and statistics to grant systems – skilfully administered by the state to create governable subjects through the managed internalization of ideologies and hierarchies. Following the now classic position piece by Ferguson and Gupta (Reference Ferguson and Gupta2002) advocating an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality, my paper argues that archaeologists’ re-enactment of bureaucratic procedures, and dependency on official legal documents granting them stewardship over the past, effectuate the state's verticality (the state is above society) and encompassment (the state holds its subjects within), ultimately making archaeologists one of the many agents reproducing the state.

The impact of bureaucracy in shaping everyday archaeological practice and identities, however, does not mean that bureaucracies and their technologies of governance are merely a neutral medium through which the state creates subjects and internalizes certain subjectivities. Timely institutional ethnographies have illustrated that bureaucrats and officials (Shore Reference Shore2000; Herzfeld Reference Herzfeld1992) are important social players with individual agency adhering to their own cultural logics and agendas. In the reciprocal process of maintaining privileged power relations and budgets, bureaucracies often are the prime agents provocateurs that, by responding to the rules of the game, further assemble the nation state. Therefore it is essential to map the complex political landscape in which heritage governance is caught up, and include the institutional elite's logic and its reciprocal power relations with the state in assessments of heritage decision-making (Taushek Reference Taushek, Bendix, Eggert and Peselmann2012; Bendix, Eggert and Peselmann Reference Bendix, Eggert, Peselmann, Bendix, Eggert and Peselmann2012).

Although an endless series of procedures and standards ties the archaeologist to the state and its bureaucracy, the ambition of this paper is to give impetus to research into the powerful analytic dimensions of archaeological paperwork. A tradition of research that has brought attention to the social life of administrative documents is the field of science studies. Latour conceptualizes documents as ‘inscriptions’ (Latour and Woolgar Reference Latour1986), interests and ideas made tangible that enable documents to operate as social actors, ‘actants’ shaping social networks and relationships (Latour Reference Latour1996). Because of their interaction with other entities and ability to restrain or enable action, administrative documents ultimately ‘transform, translate, and modify the meaning or the elements they are supposed to carry’ (Latour Reference Latour2005, 39). Ethnographic explorations into the ‘embodied’ nature of bureaucratic documents have similarly illustrated how ubiquitous paperwork operates as mediator of the state, instantiating both significance and authority (Hull Reference Hull2012, 253). Especially the ethnographic approach favored by Riles (Reference Riles2000; Reference Riles and Riles2006) will be central in this short assessment of archaeological permits as ‘paradigmatic artifacts of modern knowledge practices’ (Riles Reference Riles and Riles2006, 2) and as tools of power.

Subtle statecraft in the West: instantiating the Flemish nation and the rise of methodology

A first example of an archaeological community, through its dependency on mundane documents and procedures, becoming entangled with the state comes from Flanders (federal subject of Belgium). In the late 1980s, following a long period of political instability, heritage and archaeology became a competence of Belgium's federal subjects (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels–Capital Region). As these subjects created their own legal frameworks and institutions governing heritage (ranging from public education to management), Belgium as a legal entity and notional space became a country without the tools to manage its own archaeological heritage. In Flanders, possibly due to the contested nature of ‘Flemish-ness’, the main governmental institutions responsible for supporting heritage initiatives eschew a nationalistic language,Footnote ² consistently avoiding wording like ‘Flemish heritage’ or the ‘heritage of Flanders’ in their official documents. However, this absence of an explicit identity discourse does not mean that heritage, as a policy responsibility, is not politically significant. Heritage, and specifically the agency responsible for the so-called ‘immovable heritage’ (Onroerend erfgoed, which includes architecture, archaeology, cultural landscapes, nautical heritage and heraldry), have been powerhouses of great interest to a variety of political parties, and have drastically impacted the archaeological subject.

Unlike in many other states, ‘immovable heritage’ is not directly controlled by the Ministry of Culture, and has over the years been a competence connected to key politicians. Since 2009 ‘immovable’ heritage has come under control of the Nieuw-Vlaamse Aliantie (N-VA, New Flemish Alliance), a pro-growth nationalist party whose ultimate goal is to pursue full Flemish independence. Although the strategic attention of the ministry to developing projects celebrating the Flemish heritage of the Flemish Rim (a predominantly French-speaking part of Flanders) is an example of the politicization of heritage, heritage is being used to shape Flemish subjects in much more subtle ways. One of the main obvious tools is Dutch, the key marker of Flemish identity. Legislation is only provided in Dutch and if one wants, for example, to request a permit, documentation or subsidies for renovating a house in one of the many historical centres of Flanders, one has to fill in an endless series of documents and communicate with inspectors in Dutch.

Not only quintessential linguistic document qualities and aesthetics (Hull Reference Hull2012, 254; Riles Reference Riles2000), such as the ‘Flemish’ lion in the letterhead, create a symbolic relation between the applicant and the government. Through the transactional process of filling in forms and submitting documents, stakeholders in the heritage process also develop an intricate relationship with the state. In the process, for example, of applying for an excavation permit, archaeologists need to provide supporting documentation outlining their competences vis-à-vis existing professional standards (defined and inspected by the bureaucracy) and subscribe to their modes of good practice. Through filling in documents and submitting reports (a requirement connected to the permit), not only does the archaeological agent legitimize the Flemish government as the institutional steward of the past of an inherently contested territory. Also, the authoritative permit as an embodiment of the heritage bureaucracy's power and logic produces normative behaviour. The inescapable use of a specialized terminology, analytical categories and organizational standards ultimately constructs local regimes of truth that bind trained professionals together, creating an archaeological community that in the process of producing culturally meaningful data further territorializes the regime.

That documents and procedures operate as a vehicle through which ‘the state comes to be imagined, encountered, and reimagined’ (Sharma and Gupta Reference Sharma, Gupta, Sharma and Gupta2006, 12) is especially evidenced in the ways archaeologists respond to the permitting process. Dependency on the same bureaucratic system and procedures providing archaeologists a place in the spatial planning policy, and a shared series of requirements connected to the archaeological permit, has created a ‘Flemish’ archaeological community, ultimately reproducing Flanders as a sociopolitical space. During my many conversations with archaeologists at local workshops and occasional visits to excavations, most professionals working in government-controlled salvage archaeology would talk about being employed in ‘Flemish archaeology’ and identify themselves as ‘Flemish archaeologists’. This is a remarkable shift, as 20 years ago – as indicated by older colleagues – most heritage research would describe local archaeology as ‘national archaeology’ (i.e. Belgian). At the same time, different civil-society initiatives advocating a better-developed legal framework – such as the Forum Vlaamse Archeologie (Forum Flemish Archaeology), Vlaams Archeologencollectief (Collective for Flemish Archaeologists), Vlaamse Ondernemers in de Archeologie (Flemish Entrepreneurs in Archaeology) and the journal Ex situ. The journal for Flemish archaeology – consistently self-identify their praxis as ‘Flemish archaeology’, reproducing Flanders as a territory with its own archaeology.

At the same time, infrastructure and technology managed by the Flemish government – such as the central archaeological inventory (CAI, a database listing all known sites) and the library of Onroerend erfgoed holding all excavation reports and local journals (Wouters Reference Wouters, Webley, Vander Linden, Haselgrove and Bradley2012) – further circumscribes archaeological research. At presentations at regional workshops or in local articles, but also in the dissertations of master's students, partially because of this research infrastructure, Flanders has become a central analytical category. For example, research questions in papers published by local periodicals (e.g. Lunula, Romeinendag, Archaeologia mediaevalis, Ex Situ, etc.) are popularly drafted in relation to Flanders. But also the distribution of certain types of material culture is commonly investigated in relation to the territory of Flanders. As timely research about the role of archaeological maps in producing postcolonial territories (Meskell Reference Meskell1998; Bahrani Reference Bahrani and Meskell1998) have reminded us, these excavation reports and research papers responsive to the Flemish administrative boundaries ultimately have the potential to conjure Flanders as a historically significant locus of cultural relevance.

A dependency on a series of administrative documents, procedures and legal frameworks has not only effected a cultural encompassment of the Flemish nation state. In addition to creating cultural categories, the ethos of the Flemish political landscape has also drastically implicated how archaeology as a discipline is understood. Specifically through the strict bureaucratization of the preservation process, via CRM legislation, a processual understanding of archaeology in Flanders has become deeply embedded, ossifying modernist theoretical paradigms and ontologies responsive to specific needs of the state.

In his appraisal of archaeological heritage management in Europe, Kristiansen (Reference Kristiansen2009) explored how specific bureaucratic approaches to preventive archaeology have nurtured a certain preoccupation with methodological integrity as opposed to more reflexive and theoretically embedded archaeologies. Although Kristiansen's sharp dichotomy has received important critique for being too generalist (Van den Dries Reference Van den Dries2011), it is true that in a context where the government fosters a regularized commercial archaeology, research is not framed around a reflective and research-based problem formulation (Kristiansen Reference Kristiansen2009; Vander Linden and Webley Reference Vander Linden, Webley, Webley, Vander Linden, Haselgrove and Bradley2012) as profit and cost reduction have become a central driving force (c.f. Schlanger Reference Schlanger2016). This dynamic intrinsically brings discussions of the development of methodological standards to the forefront (Willems and Van den Dries Reference Willems and van den Dries2007; Goudswaard et al. Reference Goudswaard, Bos, van Roode and Pape2012). However, at the same time these quality mechanisms indirectly represent archaeology as an objective scientific process that can be subdivided in intermediate steps.

A regulated ‘factory-model’ logic occupies a central place in the legislation and bureaucratic tools structuring the process of preservation ‘by record’ in Flanders. In an effort to ensure quality, the institution charged with archaeology has attempted to develop fixed standards ensuring that ex situ preservation through excavation reflects an objective image of the past, whereas, under the 1993 archaeology decree,Footnote ³ a series of requirements connected to the permit were put into place to ensure the scientific quality of a rescue excavation (Wouters Reference Wouters, Webley, Vander Linden, Haselgrove and Bradley2012). Under the new 2013 decree,Footnote ⁴ the permit system is set to disappear and fieldwork will be administered by an ‘accreditation’ mechanism. If an archaeologist can provide documentary proof of certain competences, the bureaucracy will certify them as a ‘recognized archaeologist’, enabling them to execute fieldwork without having to constantly apply for an excavation permit. This, however, does not mean that there will be no administrative oversight. The accreditation process has built-in quality mechanisms through the ‘code of good practice’. If certified archaeologists are unable to adhere to this code, they will lose their accreditation and will not be able to excavate. The hefty administrative document defining this code of good practice explicitly presents archaeological research as a ‘process’ that can be subdivided in different objective steps. The code describes, aided by a plethora of flowcharts, the preferred archaeological decision-making process and ‘the objectives that need to be achieved [in each step], who should be involved, which resources should be minimally used to achieve these goals and what the end product of each step in the [archaeological] process should look like’.Footnote ⁵ These requirements must be strictly followed, and are applicable to both preventive and scientific excavations. The code details, step by step, the procedures archaeologists must follow, including the type of paper archaeologists should use, how photographs should be taken, and even how databases should be structured.

In their timely overview of the effects of the existing legal frameworks on archaeology in Flanders, De Clercq et al. already addressed the Flemish government's obsession with routinization, and appositely pointed out that this ‘repetitive scenario is of course comfortable from an intellectual point of view and manageable from a commercial and administrative angle, but is this the way to understand the past?’ (De Clercq et al. Reference De Clercq, Bats, Bourgeois, Crombé, De Mulder, De Reu, Herremans, Webley, Vander Linden, Haselgrove and Bradley2012, 52). It is understandable that such routinized archaeology is favoured because of very concrete and often material outcomes (reports, preservation ex situ in a repository, economic development of a site, etc.), and because of conviction that one has contributed to deciphering the past through completing a step in the archaeological process.

However, I believe that the Flemish government's choice of a standardized archaeology cannot be singularly explained by the intellectually comfortable nature of a ‘box-ticking’ type of archaeology. Comparative research into the politics of CRM in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia (Smith Reference Smith2004; Shanks and McGuire Reference Shanks and McGuire1996) teaches us that much more deeply rooted epistemologies and ontologies lay at its roots. As discussed by Scott (Reference Scott1998) in his timely ‘Seeing like a state’, modern nation states are inherently drawn to standardization and simplification of social life because of high modernist philosophies. Within high modernity the conviction stands central that all complexities of social life can be universally managed through the ‘rational (re)design of society’ when using procedures based on scientific positivist expertise. Although Scott's work focuses on the impact of urban planning and social engineering, his conviction that the state's primary interest is making social processes legible for management imperatives can be extended to the heritage sector. Standardization of archaeology creates the false impression that the past is something manageable that follows discrete scientific law-like processes, representing heritage as something that can be controlled or governed. Clearly, such an Enlightenment-embedded belief in the objectivity of the archaeological ‘process’ is intellectually thin and ignores most postmodern archaeological literature, which emphasizes the importance of reflexivity in archaeological analysis (Hodder Reference Hodder2005; Shanks and McGuire Reference Shanks and McGuire1996).

The Flemish government's formalization of archaeology as a process-based scientific enterprise consisting of discrete objective steps has become an unquestioned belief, underlining that in their governmentality project the Flemish state has created new subjects (archaeologists) adhering to very convenient understandings of the archaeological workflow. This became evident to me in 2013 during a discussion at the annual meeting of the Forum Vlaamse Archeologie, a public forum traditionally hosting a round-table session devoted to CRM. During the discussion one participant employed in salvage archaeology in 2013 publicly critiqued the universities’ archaeological projects abroad and questioned why they are not focusing on the hundreds of CRM reports instead. He kindly reminded the audience that universities have a role in the scientific process, and that it is their duty to analyse the ‘objective’ CRM reports produced by developer-led archaeology. Throughout my tenure at Ghent University (2009–14) and my participation in local networking days (contactdagen) I have frequently documented similar critiques marshalling academics to fulfil their discrete ‘step’ in the archaeological process. This especially came to the forefront when, in 2010, the idea was launched to develop a ‘solidarity fund for archaeological research’. In an effort to manage the unpredictable cost of salvage archaeology, central stakeholders in CRM would need to contribute financially to a fund, which could then be used to partially finance rescue work. In 2012, one key archaeologist (the adviser of the former minister of immovable heritage) publicly stated that he ‘would like to know from the universities if they would be willing to participate in funding the solidarity fund’ because the produced data would ultimately enable us to conduct our work: interpretation of archaeological data. Such statements, discursively assembled around the idea of a manageable archaeological workflow, highlight the false logic normalized by the proliferation of procedures connected to the permit and accreditation mechanisms. Procedures are repeated on a daily basis by hundreds of professional contract archaeologists – ‘box-ticking’ that only makes sense to practitioners because of their imagined scientific nature. The imagined scientific objectivity, ultimately, is constructed through operational guidelines connected to the permit and accreditation.

This process-based management of archaeology has also curtailed research at universities, creating a climate for a more method-oriented archaeology. Heavily bureaucratized contract archaeology has especially cross-fertilized departments that have a strong regional archaeology research and teaching component. At these departments most students are employed after their studies by commercial archaeology firms, materials from developer-led excavations are used for dissertation work, and postdocs and members of faculty often do consultancy work for archaeological companies. At the same time, as traditional funding for academic research within the humanities continues to erode, researchers are increasingly forced to tap into funding schemes where grant projects have to explicitly demonstrate their socio-economic relevance. Projects focusing on new methodologies that can potentially ‘objectify’ certain steps in the archaeological process are consequently favoured, drastically implicating research strategies. I myself have been complicit in this methodologization of archaeology. In a project investigating the cost-effective three-dimensional (3D) archaeological document, our strategic aims were discursively assembled around the qualitative and cost-effective benefits of our method and how our research could contribute to ‘scientific’ ex situ preservation by record in Flanders (Plets et al. Reference Plets, Verhoeven, Cheremisin, Plets, Bourgeois, Stichelbaut, Gheyle and De Reu2012; De Reu et al. Reference De Reu, Plets, Verhoeven, De Smedt, Bats, Cherretté and De Maeyer2013). Ultimately mere documentation in 3D was seen as a legitimate end in itself.

I am not arguing that the legal framework and activities of the Flemish heritage bureaucracy are the sole explanation for the strong emphasis on methodology and the survival of processualism. Prior to the boom in developer-led projects, archaeology was already strongly influenced by New Archaeology. However, I believe that the intricate synergy between universities, the market and the Flemish heritage bureaucracy administering the authoritative tools (permit/accreditation) of the archaeological process has helped to further naturalize a high modernist understanding of archaeology where methodological procedures are believed to be at the centre of archaeological praxis. Because of this prime focus on methodological integrity, important theoretical developments and reflexive research projects by Flemish historical archaeologists (Herremans and De Clercq Reference Herremans and De Clercq2013; Loveluck and Tys Reference Loveluck and Tys2006; De Clercq, Dumoulyn and Haemers Reference De Clercq, Dumoulyn and Haemers2007) and interpretive work in prehistoric archaeology (Crombé and Robinson Reference Crombé and Robinson2014) have failed to cross-fertilize other research, and many projects both within and outside academia remain critically undertheorized.

Permits and bureaucratic power in managed democracies: undermining collective agency and legitimizing Putin's centre–periphery relations

As archaeology globally tends to be organized using similar bureaucratic structures and authoritative documents (ranging from permits to laws providing archaeology a place in spatial planning), archaeology is inescapably prescribed by the nation state through its heritage bureaucracy. This, however, does not mean that this influence will be similar across the world. In the West the influence of the nation state will be completely different than in authoritative regimes, especially in those nation states that are dominated by ethnic elites that structurally undermine the collective agency of other ethnic and national groups. In many managed democracies (e.g. Turkey, Russia, China) the use of archaeology for furthering the state is much more direct, and legal frameworks and bureaucratic structures often explicitly emphasize certain national pasts and sociopolitical ambitions (Sheperd Reference Sheperd2006; Shnirelman Reference Shnirelman, Hartley, Yazicioğlu and Smith2008; Human Reference Human2015). This politicization of heritage can mirror more traditional nationalist tactics where the selective celebration of rich and ‘developed’ pasts legitimizes specific cultural taxonomies and deeply rooted institutional discrimination against minorities (Plets Reference Plets2015; Meskell Reference Meskell2012; Exell Reference Exell, Exell and Rico2014). By discussing my own experiences as a member of the Belgian Altai Project in the Siberian Altai Republic, a federal subject of the Russian Federation, I will highlight the intricate impact of the nation state's bureaucracy in a non-Western context.

When the Soviet Union started to show its first cracks, many non-Russian indigenous groups actively revived their traditions and celebrated their past in an effort to claim cultural sovereignty. Those nationalities that became part of the newly established Russian Federation, by constitution a multinational federal state, continued their struggle by appropriating intrinsically Soviet political frameworks and ethnic taxonomies (Tishkov Reference Tishkov1997; Shnirelman Reference Shnirelman2005). Consequently, many indigenous politicians developed well-organized institutional structures in an effort to cultivate internal cohesion and negotiate legitimacy vis-à-vis the centre. As the Russian state remained fairly weak throughout the 1990s many indigenous regions were successful in negotiating their own treaty with the centre, enabling them to adopt their own constitution, national symbols and bureaucracies (Ross Reference Ross2002). In the Altai Republic, following a conflict with archaeologists of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science (SB-RAS) over the repatriation and reburial of indigenous remains (Mikhailov Reference Mikhailov2013; Plets et al. Reference Plets, Konstantinov, Soenov and Robinson2013), the development of institutional frameworks for the management of cultural heritage was one of the major achievements of the local indigenous elite. The constitution of the Altai Republic, for example, defined the Altaians as the privileged stewards of their heritage, and a symbolic decree voted in 1997 made archaeological excavation dependent on indigenous consent and largely prohibited excavations in the south-east of the republic.Footnote ⁶ In an effort to gain more control over the system of archaeological permits that was previously controlled by the RAS, this decree was one of the first legal victories of indigenous peoples against the Russian archaeological establishment.

When Putin replaced Yeltsin as president of the Russian Federation, a policy of regionalism was replaced by centralization (Gel′man Reference Gel′man2015). Using Chechnya, the Moscow apartment bombings and the Beslan drama as justification for a strong federal state, Putin was determined to break the ‘nation building’ in the different indigenous republics and challenged the federal model of Russia (Balzer Reference Balzer2010; Goode Reference Goode2011). A series of legal changes subsequently curtailed the regions’ and the minorities’ autonomy and rights to cultural governance (Donahoe et al. Reference Donahoe, Habeck, Halemba and Santha2008; Newcity Reference Newcity2009). Heritage institutions have been uncomfortably caught up in this careful subversion of regional power because of its political importance. Cultural heritage self-governance not only is a vehicle for political legitimation and collective agency, which stands diametrically opposed to Putin's pro-Russian, pro-growth discourse (Stammler and Wilson Reference Stammler and Wilson2006; Plets et al. Reference Plets, Konstantinov, Soenov and Robinson2013; c.f. Plets Reference Plets2015). Regional heritage legislation at the same time also can influence development projects, which in the case of Russia's dependence on resource development is of strategic importance. Because of these nationalistic and pragmatic dimensions, the Kremlin has been skilfully undercutting regional heritage structures. In 2002 a new federal cultural heritage law was passed,Footnote ⁷ explicitly ascribing ownership of archaeological finds to the federal state (N73-F3, Article 49), making excavation permits the responsibility of the Russian Ministry of Culture.

Today the local Altaian heritage bureaucracy is still active, and through negotiations with Russian archaeologists tries to ensure that excavations take place in a culturally appropriate way and that finds are repatriated to their ancestral homeland. However, from a legal perspective the agency has been stripped of its executive power. As stipulated under the 2002 federal cultural heritage law and specified under a 2009 federal order,Footnote ⁸ archaeological heritage is the responsibility of the Russian federal state and only the Russian Ministry of Culture (Rosohrankultura) has the ability to issue, suspend and cancel archaeological work (Article 1, 2009 order). Permits (called otkritiy list – ‘open list’) are issued for the Ministry of Culture by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IA-RAS) in Moscow (Article 2.B, 2009 order), which is affiliated with the SB-RAS, with whom the Altaians had a serious conflict. The IA-RAS also have a Department of Rescue Excavations, which is responsible for reviewing planning permissions and regulating preventive research. At the same time the different branches of the RAS have also been the most important players in executing developer-funded excavations (Engovatova Reference Engovatova2012). Public–private contract-archaeology projects associated with large development projects have consequently become an important lifeline for the archaeological institutes of the RAS (Engovatova Reference Engovatova2012; Munchaev Reference Munchaev2004). Leo Klejn (Reference Klejn2012, 46–49) went as far as to argue that significant income from the oil and gas sectors has piloted archaeology out of the financial difficulties of the 1990s, transforming it into one of the few prosperous fields of research.

An amendment in 2013 to the 2002 cultural heritage law further ossified the privileged position of the archaeologists of the RAS, as under the new Article 45.1 the ‘full authority to regulate archaeological fieldwork was transferred to the Russian Academy of Sciences, including the establishment of a uniform procedure for conducting archaeological fieldwork’.Footnote ⁹ These procedures were fixed in the Regulations on Archaeological Fieldwork and Preparation of the Scientific Report Documentation. As a result, the RAS not only has the power to (1) advise excavations, (2) appear on expert committees of big development projects (e.g. pipeline projects), (3) execute multimillion-ruble developer-led projects and (4) regulate archaeological permits, but it also (5) became a controlling body defining best practice to which all archaeologists active in Russia should report (including its competitors). Despite criticism from regional archaeological communities (Plets et al. Reference Plets, Konstantinov, Soenov and Robinson2013) and regional heritage bureaucracies, key archaeologists of the RAS have become a bureaucratic heritage elite. Consequently the RAS has become an institutional powerhouse defining the rules of the game and structuring the archaeological playing field.

Importantly, these bureaucratic tools and responsibilities of the RAS ultimately ensured that archaeologists became conduits for the Kremlin controlled by Putin, reproducing the Russian state's verticality vis-à-vis non-Russian federal subjects. Archaeologists of the RAS, for example, have assisted the Kremlin in appropriating heritage as an administrative competence away from regional governments, intrinsically commandeering important sociopolitical capital legitimizing cultural claims away from the regions. In the Altai Republic, for example, members of the RAS have actively challenged the authority of local laws and have indirectly buttressed the Russian state as a meaningful and vertically encompassing centre of power. When in 2009 local leaders and bureaucrats challenged SB-RAS archaeologists excavating on indigenous land that they required permission of the local population (1997 Altaian law), the archaeologists disregarded the legitimacy of the local officials by drawing on their permit and institutional power. Later that year they turned to ‘the federal service for monitoring compliance with cultural heritage protection law’ to challenge the regional heritage authority and quickly the local archaeological law was found unconstitutional and was annulled.Footnote ¹⁰

By challenging local heritage bureaucracies, top archaeologists associated with the RAS are not only furthering Putin's vertikal′ power and authority (Monaghan Reference Monaghan2012), they are also complicit in constructing the Russian federal state as a meaningful cultural space with historical dimensions, hinting that the intricate networks of power granting them privileged stewardship over the management of the past (including the huge financial possibilities) are reciprocal.Footnote ¹¹ That this relation with the state is reciprocal and should be carefully nourished has become especially topical since certain pro-development movements in the Duma (parliament) have been lobbying against the prominent role of archaeology in the spatial planning process (Engovatova Reference Engovatova, Schlanger and Aitchison2010), which could potentially undermine bureaucratic power and current financial flows.

The political interests of the archaeologists of the RAS have been to maintain these privileged structures, and Russia's top scientific institution (the Academy of Sciences) has actively supported the Kremlin's interest. In addition to challenging regional legislative structures, the discourse of top archaeologists frequently echoes patriotic statements of President Putin (see Plets Reference Plets2015; Shnirelman Reference Shnirelman, Hartley, Yazicioğlu and Smith2008). In public statements, key archaeologists frequently invoke the ‘idea of Russia’ and regularly remind other archaeologists of the relevance of marshalling archaeology in furthering the state. Some have even gone as far, drawing on historical data, as to present the modern Russian state as an archaeological reality. In a co-authored keynote paper presented at the 9th All-Russian Archaeological Congress in 2015, director of the IA-RAS Nikolai Makarov reminded the Russian archaeological community of their duty to use their research to further the state and popularize the rich Russian past to the public. Makarov underlined the importance of including the rich archaeological history of Russia in national textbooks. A diverse heritage is important because it indicates that the territory of Russia is not ‘a random location on the world map’ (Makarov, Belayev and Engovatova Reference Makarov, Belayev and Engovatova2015, 12) but, drawing on observations from prehistory and early history, a meaningful geographical area characterized by ‘common features that have ensured the shape of a cultural meta-unity such as Russia’ (ibid., 13). Makarov's discourse, in which all the different nationalities are predestined to be united under the Russian Federation, clearly corresponds to the deliberately ambiguous nation policy of Putin and his nomenklatura (see Shevel Reference Shevel2011), where non-Russian indigenous nationalities are structurally and culturally disadvantaged.

Besides providing narratives that assemble the culturally meaningful Russian nation and buttress bureaucratic structures alienating non-Russian minorities, the impact of the centre also transcends the trope of nationalism. In addition to the creation of a climate favouring a more methodological archaeology, archaeologists have become key protagonists in major development projects central to the political economy of the state. Due to the financial benefits connected to preventive archaeology, archaeologists are located dangerously close to the pro-development rhetoric of the Russian state, ultimately operating as external scientific voices legitimizing contested projects.

Because of their financial dependency on large-scale development projects, archaeologists in Russia are complexly tied into Russia's semi-state-controlled resource sector and underlying pro-growth agenda. As indicated above, over the past two decades developer-funded archaeology has been an important lifeline, enabling many institutes, and departments at universities and museums, and the branches of the RAS, to conduct fieldwork and fund research. As Putin's attempt to strategically tap into the full potential of the global energy market as been accompanied by a building boom, archaeological research has increased significantly (Engovatova Reference Engovatova, Schlanger and Aitchison2010; Reference Engovatova2012). Although many researchers involved in this project have the best intentions, inevitably, as suggested by different scholars working on the nexus of salvage archaeology and dam building (Hafsaas-Tsakos Reference Hafsaas-Tsakos2011; Schoup Reference Schoup2006), through participating in large and highly contested development projects archaeologists reinforce existing inequalities while legitimizing particular sociopolitical agendas (Hafsaas-Tsakos Reference Hafsaas-Tsakos2011, 69–70). In the Altai Republic, for example, archaeologists have become entangled with Gazprom's highly controversial Altai pipeline project (Plets et al. Reference Plets, Gheyle, Plets, Dvornikov and Bourgeois2011; Plets Reference Plets2016). Many researchers have told me that although they are critical of the project, because the project is inevitable and funding through conventional channels is limited, they participate in these projects in order to get a piece of the pie. Gazprom has been keenly using results from archaeological research in their social-responsibility strategy, hinting that archaeologists and their reports have become conduits in greenwashing contested development projects. A page on the Gazprom website detailing the social-responsibility efforts connected to the Southern Corridor pipeline (the Turkish Stream), for example, clearly states that ‘artifacts were discovered and examined, enabling the scientists to better understand the processes that took place in Russia's south in various historical periods’ (Gazprom 2015).

Archaeologists of the Russian scientific establishment have also legitimized existing energy projects more explicitly. Researchers of the SB-RAS, who are tied to the government because of their bureaucratic power and advisory role in the spatial planning process, have even actively and very vocally defended projects of the energy sector. In a statement to the press, chief SB-RAS archaeologist Vyachislav Molodin, a key expert in the feasibility study of the Altai pipeline project, affirmed his institution's ability to guarantee the sustainable preservation of the archaeological heritage, silencing critiques of the potentially devastating impact of the project on Altaian heritage. He even weighed in on the ecological discussion, and defended the pipeline as an essential project because ‘gas is the most environmentally friendly available energy resource, so the construction of the pipeline will be advantageous for the local residents’ (SB-RAS 2012). By adopting an environmental discourses apropos to the local predispositions to the environment (Halemba Reference Halemba2004) and scientific expertise (Plets et al. Reference Plets, Konstantinov, Soenov and Robinson2013), Gazprom-contracted scientific experts ultimately helped structure the reactions to the project on the ground. In a process that pays off, during interviews many indigenous interlocutors defended the pipeline and assured me it would bring development and reduce deforestation.

Heritage statecraft in the 21st century: a project or product of the state?

Drawing on experiences in both the West (Flanders) and the developing East (Siberia, Russia) this paper has investigated the subtle, but very significant, impact of the state on archaeology. Drawing on a careful assessment of the impact of heritage bureaucracies, this paper has illustrated that we need to look beyond the traditional ‘poppy-growers’ perspective and look at the subtle political technologies and networks of power structuring archaeology. At first sight benign systems of government in practice entangle archaeologists with the nation state and its myriad of interests and agendas. These entanglements illustrate that archaeology is still a product of the nation state. Whether this influence on the state is planned by political elites, which would make archaeology a project of the nation state, is far from clear and we can only speculate about this.

By drawing on two different contexts, this paper has stressed the importance of a contextual approach that recognizes the highly variegated and diffuse nature of the archaeology–state relationship. Although there are some basic similarities in the way archaeology is enmeshed in a variety of institutional structures, across the world, different subjective dynamics are constructing dissimilar nation states, coalescing with different types of archaeology, ultimately giving rise to distinct discourses and subtle mechanisms of power drastically shaping unique local archaeological regimes of truth, ensuring that archaeologists reproduce the state and its ideology in certain ways. The Flemish government might not explicitly talk about the distinctiveness of Flemish heritage and identity in its discourse, but their careful institutionalization of heritage has produced a ‘Flemish’ archaeological community. Research questions by local archaeologists not only construct Flanders as a notional space. Specific non-nationalist agendas and deeply rooted modernist ontologies have also triggered, through bureaucratic quality mechanisms, a procedural approach where archaeology is perceived to be an objective scientific process. In Russia, on the other hand, legislation is much more explicit and archaeologists assist in appropriating heritage away from the regions and from indigenous groups. Archaeologists of the historically powerful RAS not only construct the verticality of the Russian state by putting this policy into practice. Their huge bureaucratic power has also put them so close to the state that their leadership actively urges other Russian archaeologists to reproduce the state as a meaningful cultural space where all different nationalities – with the ethnic Russians as first amongst equals – are predestined to form a united community. At the same time, financial dependency on intrinsically contested large-scale development projects is similarly problematic and furthers the neoliberal interests of the state.

Although this paper has focused on the relationship between the state and its domestic archaeological communities, archaeologists are also intricately connected to foreign states. As permits and research visas are vital for academic archaeologists engaged in long-term archaeological projects in managed democracies (e.g. Turkey, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, etc.), non-domestic archaeologists are forced to engage with politicized heritage bureaucracies that deliberately effect institutional discrimination. Although most archaeologists are aware of the potential politicization of their data, this does not mean that foreign archaeologists indirectly reproduce existing vertical power structures and ethno-cultural imbalances. This issue has not been addressed in this paper and deserves attention.