International Conference: Bodies of Knowledge

Arabic Language, Egyptian Labor, and Communities of Practice in the History of Archaeology & Egyptology

Language and labor are fundamental conditions of knowledge production, both rarely addressed in intellectual histories of archaeology. How have communities of language and work formed through archaeological practice in the Middle East and North Africa? And what are the social and sociolinguistic conditions through which “embodied knowledge” (language and work techniques) makes a “body of knowledge” in writing and publication? This symposium brings together current research in the history of archaeology to assess how labor histories, Arabic sources, and alternative archival perspectives are shifting the paradigm of knowledge production in the archaeology of the MENA region.

Archaeological workers, field technicians, and ruyasa (foremen) like the Quftis of Upper Egypt are no longer the ‘hidden hands,’ ‘invisible excavators,’ or ‘silent laborers’ they were a decade ago. Thanks to new and ongoing research in the fields of archaeology, history, anthropology, and Egyptology their stories are emerging from the shadows of archaeological archives into the spotlight of history. Since the publication of Stephen Quirke’s Hidden Hands: Egyptian Workforces in Petrie Excavation Archives, 1880–1924 (2010), new books, articles, websites, and exhibitions have appeared regularly, devoted to histories of archaeological labor in Egypt, the Sudan, and the Middle East. The first wave of this research has been pushing against and redefining the boundaries of archaeological archives. No longer the domain of single scholars or institutions, these archives are connecting more and more with large-scale histories of the region. This symposium invites participants to reflect on how this archival turn and its labor focus have reformed the state of knowledge about archaeology in the Arabic-speaking world. It also aims to assess the status of both spoken and written Arabic as a community of sociolinguistic practice within that body of knowledge.

Program Summary

Who Was Who in Quft? A forum for presenting new and ongoing archive projects focused on the stories of archaeological workers and Quftis in the MENA region.
Preliminary research findings from the Arabic Excavation Archive from Quft, an interdisciplinary research project studying the Arabic Diaries of the Harvard University–Boston MFA Egyptian Expedition (1913–1947), inviting feedback and participation from the international scholarly community.
Who Puts the Work in Fieldwork? Moving beyond the external decolonizing paradigm of ‘passive, hidden, invisible, and silent’ workers, as seen from the vantage point of Western academic publication—how do we investigate sites of action, expertise, and voice that are internal to the field and its community space? Shifting our lens to the social and linguistic conditions of knowledge production within Egypt and the Sudan. Followed by a round of presentations on the Field and Its Frontiers, a more global perspective on the history of archaeological labor.
Archive Archaeology. Discussion of archives as sites of knowledge production, identifying the multilingual components, modes of documentation, and cultural assumptions used to create archaeological narratives. Focus on archival interventions, sources, and actors centered on Egypt and the Middle East.
Seminar-style roundtables and Q&A discussions on issues of Qufti genealogy and oral history, translation methods and challenges of “Dig Arabic,” archives and multilingualism, and language, voice, and representation in historiography.

Practical information

When? 19–21 November 2024
Where? Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo
Registration? Registration is free but required. If you wish to attend either in person or online, please fill in this form before 1 November 2024.

For more information, contact the organizers:
Wendy Doyon wendy_doyon@fas.harvard.edu
Marleen De Meyer m.j.c.de.meyer@nvic.leidenuniv.nl

Participants & Keynote Presentations

Confirmed participants include 40 international scholars based within and outside Egypt who are published on the core themes of the symposium from the fields of archaeology, history, Arabic language and linguistics, and Egyptology. We invite all interested scholars to attend and participate in these discussions.

Professor Hany Rashwan, Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at United Arab Emirates University and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, will deliver the opening keynote address, Intellectual Decolonisation: Arabocentric and Eurocentric knowledge production of ancient Egyptian language.

Professor Bonnie Effros, Head of History at the University of British Columbia and author of Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa, 1830–1870 (2018), will deliver the NVIC Cleveringa lecture on the state of the field of archaeological history, Sizing up Colonial Archives: Critical Approaches to the History of Archaeology in North Africa and the Middle East.

Preliminary Program

Will be available for download shortly