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Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society

Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society
By Nadia Abu El-Haj

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Archaeology in Israel is truly a national obsession, a practice through which national identity—and national rights—have long been asserted. But how and why did archaeology emerge as such a pervasive force there? How can the practices of archaeology help answer those questions? In this stirring book, Nadia Abu El-Haj addresses these questions and specifies for the first time the relationship between national ideology, colonial settlement, and the production of historical knowledge. She analyzes particular instances of history, artifacts, and landscapes in the making to show how archaeology helped not only to legitimize cultural and political visions but, far more powerfully, to reshape them. Moreover, she places Israeli archaeology in the context of the broader discipline to determine what unites the field across its disparate local traditions and locations.

Boldly uncovering an Israel in which science and politics are mutually constituted, this book shows the ongoing role that archaeology plays in defining the past, present, and future of Palestine and Israel.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #521224 in Books
  • Published on: 2002-02-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 363 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Al-Haj''s analysis of the political nature of archaeological practice is an incisive, penetrating, and persuasive discussion of how the past has been instrumental in the shaping of modern Israeli identity."-Antiquity (Antiquity )

From the Inside Flap

In this incisive book, Nadia Abu El-Haj demonstrates the role that archaeology has played in Israeli society, examining how it emerged as a pervasive force that has shaped the region's social and political imaginations and has inspired violently contested territorial and national-cultural struggles. Based on archival research and ethnographic work among archaeologists, tour guides, and politicians, she presents the first critical account of Israeli archaeological practice while tracing the dynamic relationships among science, colonization, nation-state building, and territorial expansion.

About the Author

Nadia Abu El-Haj is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

Customer Reviews

Provocative and thoughtful5
As an avid amateur archeologist, I read this book to gain insight into the current situation of unearthing the past in Palestine. The author presented several intriguing ideas, such as the desire of immigrants who never had any contact with this "new-old land" to establish a legitimacy entitling them to be part of the region. Such insights as the naming of Tel Aviv (from Arabic words for "mound" and "spring") and the excavations of the Temple site shed light on the process of the creation of the myth of a new nation. Indeed, the immigrants, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, had been schooled in the process of using the past to justify their nationhood. I highly recommend this text for anyone interested in a new and daring view of the material. There are some critics who have launched a campaign to discredit the author because of her temerity in analyzing most objectively the politics of mythification via archeology. No one should be discouraged from reading "Facts on the Ground" by such obvious would-be-silencers of what they consider to be a taboo topic.

Nadia Abu el Haj and Yael Zerubavel5
Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition by Yael Zerubavel discusses the construction of memory and the invention of traditions in Mandatory Palestine and in the State of Israel. The book describes some unusual Israeli or Zionist practices associated with Masada and Bar Kochba archeological excavations.

Rather like Nadia Abu el Haj in Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, Zerubavel describes the use of archeology and other scholarship to construct Zionist national identity.

Other scholars have investigated the political use of archeology in various contexts. Not only Max Weinreich and Eric Hobsbawm provide similar analysis in their published works, but Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State Formation Theories by Hyung Il Pai addresses precisely that same issues with regard to the development of Korean national consciousness.

Even though Abu el Haj focuses more narrowly on professional archeologists whereas Zerubavel looks at Israeli society as a whole, both authors make similar points in their books, and Zerubavel provides support for some of the claims for which Nadia Abu el Haj has been most criticized.

Zerubavel received the 1996 Salo Baron Prize of the American Academy for Jewish Research for her work while Nadia Abu el Haj is the target of an international campaign to drive her out of Columbia/Barnard. The difference in the responses evoked by the two authors merits a scholarly study in itself.

Archaeology IS Political!5
The politicization of archaeology--like every other discipline--is not new and El-Haj makes a thoroughly professional and expert comment on the political uses and abuses of Israeli archaeology. Highly recommended!