Session: #245

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
5. Climate Change and Socioenvironmental Perspectives
Session format:
Discussion session (with formal abstracts)

Title & Content

Title:
CANCELLED Archaeological Narratives of Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Era
Content:
From the beginning of the film industry, the apocalypse has been one of the major topics of movies, especially in sci-fi and fantasy genres. These movies usually represent a destroyed world, a dystopia. On the other hand, the term “apocalypse” has historically had a heavy religious connotation. The end of the world and apocalyptic imaginations has been configured in most religions, particularly monotheistic religions.
The term has recently received academic attention as a concept that can be applied to visualize and interpret the consequences of dramatic cultural and environmental changes due to globalization, capitalism, the collapse of local economies, traditions, and communities, consumerism, climate change, environmental crisis, and even the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a matter of fact, the world is changing every day and the above-mentioned issues, among others, begin to affect the quality of life of people and societies. The materiality of these harsh and rapid transformations can be studied archaeologically. Settlements, from urban centers to rural and nomad, subsistence, landscapes, and even heritage are constantly changing and the interplay between societies and crisis/apocalypse is resulting not only in the production of new sorts of material cultures, such as e-waste but the emergence of new lifestyles and communities such as garbage-people.
Thanks to the methodological potentials of archaeology to study the contemporary world, in this session, we intend to open new debates by considering the recent past, present, and accordingly the future of the people, communities, and cultures that are on the brink of an apocalypse. We would like to notably consider communities, groups, and lifestyles that are usually overlooked: impoverished communities, minorities, and marginalized communities. We appreciate narratives from different perspectives and interdisciplinary researches which present novel understandings of apocalypse and post-apocalypse at local and global levels from an archaeological perspective.
Keywords:
Apocalyptic era, dystopia, environmental changes, globalization, climate change
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:

Organisers

Main organiser:
Leila Papoli Yazdi (Sweden) 1
Co-organisers:
Maryam Dezhamkhooy (Germany) 2
Affiliations:
1. Linnaeus University
2. Universität Heidelberg