Anna Källén

A thoughtful consideration of the storytelling and science behind ancient DNA discoveries. In recent years, discoveries brought to light through analysis of ancient DNA—or aDNA—have made headlines around the world. While ancient DNA studies may appear to focus on laboratory science and objective results, the findings have also relied heavily on storytelling and can be influenced by political interests. In The Trouble with Ancient DNA, Anna Källén explores how the parameters of genetic science influence the stories we tell about our ancient ancestors, questioning what narratives we can and should take at face value. Through accounts of migrations, warriors, and figures like Cheddar Man, we see enticing and potent narratives that reach far beyond what can be gathered from the scientific study of molecules alone. Rather, by privileging certain narratives and questions—like those about sex or eye and skin color—our stories of ancient DNA are spun around the structure of today’s methodologies, technologies, and popular and political interests. Källén considers how DNA is used to sensationalize stories, how its use poses questions of ethics and care, and who is responsible if stories of ancient DNA are adopted for dangerous political projects.

A thoughtful consideration of the storytelling and science behind ancient DNA discoveries. In recent years, discoveries brought to light through analysis of ancient DNA—or aDNA—have made headlines around the world. While ancient DNA studies may appear to focus on laboratory science and objective results, the findings have also relied heavily on storytelling and can be influenced by political interests. In The Trouble with Ancient DNA, Anna Källén explores how the parameters of genetic science influence the stories we tell about our ancient ancestors, questioning what narratives we can and should take at face value. Through accounts of migrations, warriors, and figures like Cheddar Man, we see enticing and potent narratives that reach far beyond what can be gathered from the scientific study of molecules alone. Rather, by privileging certain narratives and questions—like those about sex or eye and skin color—our stories of ancient DNA are spun around the structure of today’s methodologies, technologies, and popular and political interests. Källén considers how DNA is used to sensationalize stories, how its use poses questions of ethics and care, and who is responsible if stories of ancient DNA are adopted for dangerous political projects.

This book is an inquiry into the relationships between archaeology, colonialism and ecotourism at the famous standing stones of Hintang, Laos. It investigates the conditions under which archaeological knowledge has been produced, appropriated, contested, commodified, and consumed by colonialism from the 1930s until today and what it shows about the power dynamics of heritage and ecotourism. The volume-explores how the discourses of colonialism and ecotourism affect tourists, archaeologists, heritage managers, and the local community;-is written as a set of overlapping creative essays, each giving an overlapping perspective on Hintang;-is a multidisciplinary research project based on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, interviews with community members, biography, material culture studies, and text analysis.

(English information below) Olov Janse var en arkeolog med ett anmärkningsvärt liv. Från sin födelse i Sverige 1892 till sin död i USA 1985 reste han flera gånger över hela världen och var närvarande vid några av de viktigaste episoderna i 1900-talets världshistoria. Hans verk och nätverk kopplade samman museer och politiska institutioner i Sverige, Frankrike, Vietnam och USA: från Historiska museet och Östasiatiska museet i Stockholm, Musée des antiquités nationales i Paris och Cernuchi Museum och det franska forskningsinstitutet EFEO i Hanoi, till UNESCO, Harvard Peabody Museum, Smithsonian Institution och amerikanska utrikesdepartementet. Han lämnade efter sig artefakter och dokument i museisamlingar och arkiv över hela världen. Men hans namn är i stort sett okänt, och hans viktigaste bidrag att knyta ihop människor och idéer mellan olika kontinenter och sammanhang har förblivit osynliga i historiska berättelser om alla dessa institutioner. Han var i alla avseenden en »archaeologist in-between«. Denna bok följer i Olov Janses och hans fru Renées fotspår när de rör sig mellan kontinenter och sammanhang och kopplar ihop nyckelaktörer och institutioner i sociala och professionella nätverk över hela världen. Den berättar den formidabla historien om en arkeolog som navigerar genom världspolitiken, från en svensk industristad vid slutet av 1800-talet, till Paris museer vid början av 1900-talet, till Franska Indokina och Filippinerna på 1930-talet, till bildandet av UNESCO 1946 och slutar med diplomatiskt arbete för USA:s utrikesdepartement precis vid randen av Vietnamkriget. Anna Källén (f. 1973) är docent i arkeologi vid Stockholms universitet. Hennes forskning handlar om den historiska utvecklingen av arkeologi som ett sätt att konceptualisera, kommunicera och använda det forntida förflutna i samtida kultur och samhälle. I över tjugo år arbetade hon med arkeologi och kulturarv i Sydostasien, och hon är författare till Stones Standing: Archeology, Colonialism, and Ecotourism in Northern Laos (2015). Hon arbetar för närvarande som forskare och föreläsare i kulturarvsstudier vid Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för kultur och estetik. Johan Hegardt (f. 1960) är docent i arkeologi vid Uppsala universitet. I sin forskning har han fokuserat på frågor som historiskt medvetande, konstruktion av historisk kunskap, det arkeologiska tänkandets historia och framväxten av historiska och etnografiska museer. Han arbetar för närvarande som forskare vid filosofisektionen vid Institutionen för kultur och lärande, Södertörns högskola. * Olov Janse was an archaeologist with a remarkable life. From his birth in Sweden in 1892 to his death in the United States in 1985, he travelled several times across the world and was present at some of the most important episodes of twentieth-century world history. His works and networks connected museums and political institutions in Sweden, France, Vietnam and the United States: from the Swedish History Museum, the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, the French Musée des antiquités nationales, the Cernuchi Museum, and the French research institute EFEO in Hanoi, to UNESCO, the Harvard Peabody Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the US Department of State. He left behind artefacts and documents in museum collections and archives across the world. But his name is largely unknown, and his most important contributions -- the connection of people and ideas between continents and contexts -- have remained invisible in historical accounts of all these institutions. The Archaeologist In-Between follows in the footsteps of Olov Janse and his wife Renée, as they move between continents and contexts, connecting key actors and institutions in social and professional networks across the world. It tells the formidable story of an archaeologist navigating through world politics, from a late nineteenth-century industrial town in Sweden, to early twentieth-century Parisian museums, to French Indochina and the Philippines in the 1930s, to the formation of UNESCO in 1946, and ending with public diplomacy for the US Department of State on the verge of the Vietnam War. Anna Källén (b. 1973) is Associate Professor in Archaeology at Stockholm University. Johan Hegardt (b. 1960) is Associate Professor in Archaeology, Uppsala University.

This book is an inquiry into the relationships between archaeology, colonialism and ecotourism at the famous standing stones of Hintang, Laos. It investigates the conditions under which archaeological knowledge has been produced, appropriated, contested, commodified, and consumed by colonialism from the 1930s until today and what it shows about the power dynamics of heritage and ecotourism. The volume-explores how the discourses of colonialism and ecotourism affect tourists, archaeologists, heritage managers, and the local community;-is written as a set of overlapping creative essays, each giving an overlapping perspective on Hintang;-is a multidisciplinary research project based on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, interviews with community members, biography, material culture studies, and text analysis.

Cultural history tends to elude positive definition. It deals in some sense with culture, and with history, combined in a creative and often critical analysis. But its strength and analytical potential is to be found in its slipperiness, in its critical attitude to authoritative categorisation, and its relentless movement towards new angles, new spaces beyond the evident and the canonical. This volume has sprung out of the Research School for Studies in Cultural History at the Faculty of Humanities of Stockholm University, a five-year interdisciplinary research programme focusing on interplays between past and present. The Research School has provided a productive space for border-crossing academic enterprises. And as a result, the seventeen essays of this volume display just as many innovative approaches to traditional academic subjects such as celebrity, literary genre, prehistoric remains, television, and historic monuments. All stem from unexpected combinations and sliding perspectives, focusing on obscure corners and gaps between the illuminated centres of traditional academic knowledge. From such sliding perspectives follows the realisation that all narratives, representations, and claims of culture and history are in some sense political. The seventeen essays in this volume demonstrate how a shifting kaleidoscope of the academic subjects makes new knowledge possible, and enables the formulation of new critical questions. Challenging, disturbing, inspirational, these essays all make cultural history.

»Vad är det som är allra roligast att läsa? Det är vill jag påstå texter som man inte visste att de fanns, om ämnen som man aldrig tänkt på som ämnen. Just den sortens texter möter man i antologin Making cultural history ett fynd för den som vill förstå vad som format den tid vi lever i Det som kanske imponerar allra mest med boken är hur uppenbart engagerade, ja, inte sällan passionerade skribenterna är.« Merete Mazzarella, Svenska DagbladetCultural history tends to elude positive definition. It deals in some sense with culture, and with history, combined in a creative and often critical analysis. But its strength and analytical potential is to be found in its slipperiness, in its critical attitude to authoritative categorization, and its relentless movement towards new angles, new spaces beyond the evident and the canonical. This volume has sprung out of the Research School for Studies in Cultural History at the Faculty of Humanities of Stockholm University, a five-year interdisciplinary research programme focusing on interplays between past and present. The Research School has provided a productive space for border-crossing academic enterprises. And as a result, the seventeen essays of this volume display just as many innovative approaches to traditional academic subjects such as celebrity, literary genre, prehistoric remains, television, and historic monuments. All stem from unexpected combinations and sliding perspectives, focusing on obscure corners and gaps between the illuminated centres of traditional academic knowledge. From such sliding perspectives follows the realization that all narratives, representations, and claims of culture and history are in some sense political. The seventeen essays in this volume demonstrate how a shifting kaleidoscope of the academic subjects makes new knowledge possible, and enables the formulation of new critical questions. Challenging, disturbing, inspirational, these essays all make cultural history. Svensk text om boken:Det är svårt att definiera kulturhistoria. Det handlar om kultur och historia, som kombineras på ett kreativt sätt och ofta med en kritisk analys. Forskningsområdet kulturhistorias styrka och analytiska potential finns just i dess gränsöverskridande karaktär, och i dess kritiska attityd mot snäva klassificeringar. Kulturhistorisk forskning strävar efter nya infallsvinklar bortom de givna och kanoniska. Essäsamlingen Making Cultural History har vuxit fram ur Forskarskolan för kulturhistoriska studier (FoKult) vid humanistiska fakulteten vid Stockholms universitet. Forskarskolan, ett femårigt tvärvetenskapligt forskningsprogram som fokuserar på samspelet mellan dåtid och nutid har givit spelrum för kreativa tvärvetenskapliga verksamheter. Som ett resultat av denna verksamhet finner vi här sjutton essäer som är fyllda av nyskapande metoder och infallsvinklar på traditionella akademiska discipliner såsom litteraturvetenskap, arkeologi och medievetenskap. Skribenterna arbetar utifrån oväntade ämneskombinationer och lyfter fram det dolda och oanade som befinner sig i den traditionella forskningens periferi. Med dessa nya perspektiv följer insikten om att allt historiskt berättande och alla utsagor om kultur och historia i viss mån är politiskt. De sjutton essäerna som utgör Making Cultural History visar hur nya infallsvinklar på de akademiska ämnena gör ny kunskap möjlig, och även gör det möjligt att formulera nya kritiska frågor. Essäerna är utmanande, irriterande och inspirerande, och alla skapar de ny kulturhistoria.