Tag: writing

Archaeology

The WordPress Workshop: Blogging as a Method for Theory Development

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick

The following text is an expanded version of a Twitter conference paper I presented in 2019 for the PressEd Twitter Conference on the importance of blogging for me as an early career researcher.

The case for using blogs as a workshopping space, based on accessibility and flexibility (from the original presentation)

The general perception of blogging has undergone drastic changes in the past two decades. What was once considered a niche hobby for those technically-savvy enough to be online in the early days of the World Wide Web has now become such an easily accessible platform that many are able to make their blog a full-time occupation. More recently, the blog format has also been adopted by academics as both a means of outreach to general public as well as an interactive and educational tool amongst their students. Much has been written about the “Academic Blog”, as a form of digital scholarship (Fox 2012; Maitzen 2012), as an extension of one’s academic identity (Kirkup 2010; Estes 2012), and its usefulness as a method of education (Chong 2010; Potter and Banaji 2012; Sun and Chang 2012).

For this paper, however, I would like to focus specifically on the blog as a space for theory development. I believe that blogs can provide the space necessary for academics, particularly those who may be early in their careers or similarly marginalised by the great academic body, to develop new and radical ideas through peer support and the freedom of expression that the blog as a platform can provide.

Early versions of the blog format have existed since the World Wide Web was opened to the public, although they mostly consisted of online diaries or lists of interesting links to other websites. By the early 2000’s, millions of blogs existed on the Internet in a variety of forms (Walker Retberg 2014: 6-13), including what I refer to as the “academic blog”. For the purposes of this paper, an “academic blog” is any educational blog written specifically by those in the academy, such as professors, lecturers, and students.

Early academic blogs were first categorised as a distinct variation of blogging by Saper (2006), who originally referred to these as “Blogademia”. This category was not limited to the more educationally-directed blogs, but also included those that were more personal and opinionated in tone, with posts on institutional gossip and complaints. However, for this discussion, I will not be focusing on these blogs, which I believe may be more classified as “blogs by academics” rather than “academic blogs”. 

Academic blogs can be divided into two major groups: blogs for outreach, where the author is writing about their field of research for a non-specialist audience, and blogs for education, where the author is usually a student who is utilising the blog as a means of demonstrating their knowledge of a particular subject.

With regards to outreach, blogs are a way for academics to discuss their work on more informal terms to a broader audience, without the gatekeeping boundaries such as journal access or conference attendance. Academic blogs also allow for interdisciplinary discussion amongst researchers across the world, allowing both specialist and non-specialist alike to provide their own perspective and exchange information (Mortensen and Walker 2002: 251).

Blogs have also found effectiveness in the education, where students are able to use the format to demonstrate knowledge and understanding. For example, some lecturers have found that the blog format is useful as a tool of supervision and evaluation due to the comment system (Chong 2010); others seen the blog as an informal space for students to practice their language skills (Sun and Chang 2012). In a similar vein, many academics have created blogs geared specifically towards students, providing lessons and advice for things such as doctoral writing (Guerin et al. 2015).

Despite their demonstrated usefulness and widespread adoption by many academics, blogs as a whole are not considered by the traditional academy as on par with publications such as journals or books  (Kirkup 2010: 76). This is a disappointment, as I think the blog, while wildly different in character and concept from more conventional methods of publication, has its place as a legitimate and vital component of academia in the Digital Age. With this in mind, I propose that perhaps the best way to view the blog with respect to academia is from the perspective of a workshop, of sorts.

Clearly, the blog format has shown promise as an educational tool, particularly for students at the secondary and higher education levels. It is also clear that there is a growing emphasis on the flexibility of the blog for self-expression. In proposing the blog as an ideal development space, I will draw from both of these statements: that it is the accessibility and the flexibility inherent within the blog format that makes it a valuable tool in theory development.

The accessibility of blogs has certainly improved over time; it is no longer a prerequisite for bloggers to be fluent in coding and other technical languages. Anyone can start a blog, regardless of technical expertise, and there are now many platforms available that can host your blog for free. Unlike the more traditional forms of academic publication, blogs allow academics to write in a jargon-free, informal way that can expand the sort of audience that your writing is accessible to. Finally, blogs are an equal ground for academics and non-academics alike; this can allow for a wider and more varied range of perspectives on your theories and ideas.

As for the flexibility of blogs, I have already mentioned that there is a freedom of expression inherent in the blog format; without the standardisation that is associated with conventional academic publishing, authors can express their thoughts and ideas in various ways. This is not limited to text, either – blogs can make use of both visual and auditory media as well. Developments in a blog, such as updates and new posts, are made at the discretion of the author. This allows for a less stressful development period without time restraints or deadlines. Most importantly, blogs can be as informal and personal as one would like, allowing the author to also be self-reflective at times and comment on their thought process throughout their theory development, which may be helpful to both the author and their readers.

To end this paper, I wanted to include some personal reflections from my own experience as an academic and blogger. In 2017, I took some time off from my PhD studies after a nervous breakdown. It was necessary, but I also found myself needing to have some kind of connection to the outside academic world. As an informal way to continue writing about my research – as well as archaeology in general – I began a blog using the WordPress platform (www.animalarchaeology.com). I wrote very basic posts on zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains in the archaeological record), with photos to help others learn how to easily identify bones.

Over the next year, however, I found my blogging evolve from these standard “Introduction to Zooarchaeology” posts. As a way of better organising my work (as well as providing more inspiration for myself), I experimented with “writing series” – collections of posts based on a specific premise or topic. However, I made a point to make each series rather unique by attempting to make connections between archaeology and popular culture (recent video games, big name franchises, theme parks etc.). Not only have these proven to be my most popular posts on the blog, but they have also challenged me to really think out-of-the-box in order to connect it to my field of research; for example, writing about the archaeology of theme parks has forced me to question my preconceptions about archaeological landscapes and how we interact with archaeology beyond what we consider “ancient artefacts”.

Today, I have fully embraced my blog as a sort of workshop for radically different perspectives on archaeology as a discipline. Many of my latest posts are part of the development process for creating new and different frameworks to consider archaeology. For example, I’ve recently been working on developing anarchist approaches to archaeology (Fitzpatrick 2018a) and exploring various facets of this praxis through a combination of blog posts and conference papers for feedback from anarchists and archaeologists alike. Another example is my current work on exploring the concept of ethics and emotion with regards to animal remains (Fitzpatrick 2018b), which I’ve played with on my blog and hope to eventually develop a fully-fledged paper based on these posts.

I wholeheartedly believe that blogging has changed my process as an academic for the better; my blog gives me the space to tackle difficult concepts, with a dedicated readership that has often provided useful comments and suggestions that have inevitably evolved my original concepts into something even better. I do not think I would be as engaged with research and academia as I am today without this space available to me in the first place.

As we rapidly progress through the Digital Age, it often feels incredibly easy to miss opportunities to adapt to new methodologies within the digital space; after all, you can argue that even academic blogging is now passé and has been made obsolete by more popular platforms for digital engagement such as Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

And while I would, of course, encourage fellow academics to utilise these platforms, I still maintain that the simple blog still holds advantages for those who are interested in developing their theoretical and methodological frameworks, particularly for early career academics. Putting oneself “out there” has its disadvantages, but from personal experience, I have truly valued the support network that has become established across fellow academic bloggers who engage with my work (and I with theirs, of course) and have helped me develop the perspective from which I now utilise in more “formal” outlets, such as conferences and journals. Other academics have echoed this sentiment, particularly within collaborative blog projects that utilise forums as a method of research communication and networking (Maitzen 2012: 350).

Having this informal space to workshop my more unconventional and radical ideas has led to further collaborations with similarly unconventional and radical academics without the need for engaging with a more traditional and conservative academic sector, which gives me hope that perhaps one day we can organise into an unconventional and radical new form of academy.

References

Chong, E. K. M. (2010) Using Blogging to Enhance the Initiation of Students into Academic Research. Computers and Education 55, 798-807.

Estes, H. (2012) Blogging and Academic Identity. Literature Compass, 1-9.

Fitzpatrick, A. (2018a) Black Flags and Black Trowels: Embracing Anarchy in Interpretation and Practice. In Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference. 

Fitzpatrick, A. (2018b) The Sadness of Skin: Emotional Reactions to Remains. Retrieved from https://animalarchaeology.com/2018/09/24/the-sadness-of-skin-emotional-reactions-to-remains.

Fox, J. W. (2012) Can Blogging Change How Ecologists Share Ideas? In Economics, It Already Has. Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 5, 74-77.

Guerin, C., Carter, S. and Aitchison, C. (2015) Blogging as Community of Practice: Lessons for Academic Development? International Journal for Academic Development 20 (3), 212-223.

Kirkup, G. (2010) Academic Blogging: Academic Practice and Academic Identity. London Review of Education 8 (1), 75-84.

Maitzen, R. (2012) Scholarship 2.0: Blogging and/as Academic Practice. Journal of Victorian Culture 17 (3), 348-354.

Mortensen, T. and Walker, J. (2002) Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool. In Morrison, A. (editor) Researching ICTs in Context.   Oslo: University of Oslo. 249-279.

Potter, J. and Banaji, S. (2012) Social Media and Self-Curatorship: Reflections on Identity and Pedagogy through Blogging on a Masters Module. Comunicar 38, 83-91.

Saper, C. (2006) Blogademia. Reconstruction 6 (4), 1-15.

Sun, Y. and Chang, Y. (2012) Blogging to Learn” Becoming EFL Academic Writers Through Collaborative Dialogues. Language Learning and Technology 16 (1), 43-61.

Walker Retberg, J. (2014) Blogging. 2nd Edition edition. Digital Media and Society Series.Cambridge: Polity Press.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology, Uncategorized

A Sort of Urban Warfare: The Future Archaeology of Hostile Architecture

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick

One of the reasons why I like speculative archaeology, or hypothetical archaeologies created in the future of our present, is that is allows us to look at current issues from a different perspective. In particular, I enjoy speculating on how specific iconography and design choices might be interpreted – for many of us, one of the first archaeological exercises you do in college is to speculate how a coin would be seen by future archaeologists, and I guess I never outgrew that. Let’s move beyond the fanciful interpretation of how George Washington’s face on the quarter could be seen as worship and idolatry (actually, there’s something there…), and move towards something perhaps more urgent: hostile architecture and design.

Recently, the MTA in New York City was justifiably put on the spot for its blunt stance against unhoused people, which was exacerbated by the unveiling of more benches designed to deter people from hanging around too long – again, something which will disproportionately affect unhoused people.  This got me thinking about the hostile architecture and what it encapsulates about our current world. “Hostile architecture” refers to specific design features made to deter people from staying too long in public spaces. This includes incorporating spikes on flat surfaces, placing seats at uncomfortable angles, and including dividers to prevent people from laying down. Hostile architecture and design removes comfort and rest from public spaces, and often funnels those needs into commodities (Kim 2019) – if hostile architecture makes sitting for free in a courtyard an impossibility, would you then turn to being a customer of a nearby café just to sit down and relax?  And again, these design choices disproportionately affect certain groups of people: disabled people, unhoused people, and poor people. 

It is easy to imagine the sort of interpretations that future archaeologists will make of the more overtly hostile architecture – both designed to repel people, one can see how spikes on a windowsill in New York City can evoke the imagery of defensive systems used in the historic and prehistoric past, from sticks and stones which were used as Iron Age chevaux-de-frise  (Murphy 2018) to the stockades often used by colonial forces during military expeditions (Jayasena 2006). Hostile architecture also inspires its own adjacent archaeologies as well, with people creating their own spaces in response to this antagonism. Here, we can actually turn to work being done alongside communities of unhoused peoples, as archaeologists such as Rachael Kiddey and John Schofield in the United Kingdom, and Larry J. Zimmerman and Jessica Welch in the United States have demonstrated with their research (e.g. Kiddey and Schofield 2011, Zimmerman and Welch 2011).

Of course, it should be said that hostile architecture shouldn’t need this sort of roundabout form of reflection to be seen as “bad”, and that choosing to divest from these antagonistic designs should be based on empathy and respect for people regardless of their circumstance, rather than the imagined judgements of a far future archaeologist. Fortunately, there are many who continue to speak out against hostile architecture and protest there use – this includes people who have also taken things into their own hands and have removed these features themselves (Suliman 2018).  And maybe this is where archaeology can step in…after all, I’m pretty sure many of us have a mattock or two to spare.

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Hostile Architecture found on a Manhattan windowsill (Photo Credit: JL Jahn/Alamy)

To end this post, I’d like to promote some groups and organisations who are doing good work at providing mutual aid for unhoused people in the UK and the US. Please consider donating, and remember that unhoused people are also part of your communities, and deserve the same respect, dignity, and care that everyone else receives. 

Remora House DC – Washington DC, United States

From the Heart PNW – Seattle, WA, United States

Feed the People Dallas Mutual Aid – Dallas, TX, United States

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless – Chicago, IL, United States

Coalition on Homelessness – San Francisco, CA, United States

National Coalition for the Homeless – United States

Museum of Homelessness – United Kingdom

NRPF Network – United Kingdom

Homeless Network Scotland – Scotland

References

Jayasena, R.J. (2006) The Historical Archaeology of Katuwana, a Dutch East India Company Fort in Sri Lanka. Post-Medieval Archaeology 40(1). pp. 111-128.

Kiddey, R., and Schofield, J. (2011) Embrace the Margins: Adventures in Archaeology and Homelessness. Public Archaeology 10(1). pp. 4-22.

Kim, E. (2019) A Field Guide to the ‘Weapons’ of Hostile Architecture in NYC. The Gothamist. Retrieved from https://gothamist.com/news/a-field-guide-to-the-weapons-of-hostile-architecture-in-nyc

Murphy, K. (2018) The Atlantic Coast. Internet Archaeology  48.

Suliman, A. (2018) Public Hits Back at ‘Hostile Architecture’ in European Cities. Reuters. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-cities-homelessness-idUSKCN1M419S

Zimmerman, L.J., and Welch, J. (2011) Displaced and Barely Visible: Archaeology and the Material Culture of Homelessness. Historical Archaeology 45(1), pp. 67-85.

 

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology, Fun, Radical Archaeology

Community-Led, Community-Run: The Blathers’ Approach to Museum Curation

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick

In the Animal Crossing video game series, Blathers is the rather stereotypical curator of the local museums; a straight-laced nerd who punctuates his educational rambling with “wot?” and is dutiful in his collecting…even if he has to occasionally handle a bug or two. But what is less stereotypical is his curatorial approach as the head of a museum that is part natural history, part aquarium, part insect sanctuary, and part art galley. You see, it’s the Player Character’s responsibility (as well as other Player Characters who may visit via online play) to actually fill the museum with donated material!

And, honestly? I think we can learn something about museum curation from this nerdy entomophobe.

Blathers: “The cultural development of Wakame (my island in Animal Crossing) is a worthy endeavour indeed.”

In a way, I guess you can consider the museum in Animal Crossing to be a sort of “community-led museum”, in that ultimately it is you, the non-specialist member of the general public, who is providing material for the museum to exhibit. Of course, its not entirely community-led : Blathers ultimately has final say in what gets displayed (no repeats! no fake artwork!) and, given the game mechanics, nearly every player will end up with the same museum as they’re encouraged to collect all of the bugs, sea creatures, fish, and artwork available in the game. But I think we can see the Animal Crossing museum as a sort of example from which we can really discuss and development the idea of a truly community-led museum.

The idea of community-led museums isn’t new, of course – in fact, if we use a broad definition of the museum as any space that has collected and protected specific objects for viewing of the general public, then community-led museum-like spaces have existed for centuries in the form of shrines and communal areas. The more modern concept of the museum (as well as its associated curation policies) are arguably more “Western” in nature, with much of it developed in a colonial framework that unfortunately influences curatorial decisions to this day (Kreps 2006). Thus, many see the resurgence of the community-led museum as a means of shifting towards a more ethical approach to curation and display.

Of course, this also means that we are discussing a very site-specific form of community-led curation – similar to the way in which the Player Character is developing exhibitions of their town/island’s specific biodiversity in Animal Crossing, I would argue that community-led museums work best when dealing with its own community. In other words, it is important to not repeat the power dynamics of the colonial museum, but with a more communal approach! Previous experiments in the community-led approach has shown that it can help develop better relationships with the concept of a local, shared heritage, and lead to a feeling of collective ownership…and responsibility…of the history and artwork on display (Debono 2014, Mutibwa et. al. 2020).

What I find most interesting about the museum in Animal Crossing is the emphasis on natural history, on what a community-led natural history museum would look like. Of course, a real life application of the techniques used in the video game would be an ethical nightmare (not sure how you feel about encouraging the general public to catch and donate live fish and bugs at their leisure?), but I think the general conceit of the approach is something to consider. Citizen science, for example, has become very popular as a means of public engagement by institutions over the past decade, and there has been some examples of natural history museums spearheading projects to engage the community to participate directly in research (Ballard et. al. 2017).

As we find ourselves in a period of revaluation and reflection due to the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, there is great potential for utilising a framework such as the community-led museum as a means of accountability and justice within historically colonial and racist institutions. As Olivette Otele recently said in a discussion with Fischer and Jansari (2020), community curation can be a means of shifting and taking power from the museum to the communities, where they can curate in ways that suit their means. This could also develop and improve long term sustainable relationships between the community and the institution, especially if the process of curation is also archived as part of the museum as well – forever preserving that collective labour, perhaps to use as a template moving forward to bigger and more radical things.

At some point, though, we should probably talk about Blather’s complicity (as well as the Player Character’s) in the illicit trade of artwork and antiquities…

References

Ballard, H.L. et al. (2017) Contributions to Conservation Outcomes by Natural History Museum-Led Citizen Science: Examining Evidence and Next Steps. Biological Conservation 208. pp. 87-97.

Debono, S. (2014) Muza: Rethinking National Art Museums and the Values of Community Curation. Malta Review of Educational Research 8(2). pp. 312-320.

Fischer, H. and Jansari, S. (2020) International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Podcast. British Museum. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/britishmuseum/august-23-podcast-ep-mixdown

Kreps, C. (2006) Non-Western Models of Museums and Curation in Cross-Cultural Perspective. In A Companion to Museum Studies (eds S. Macdonald). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 457-472.

Mutibwa, D.H., et al. (2020) Strokes of Serendipity: Community Co-Curation and Engagement with Digital Heritage. Convergence 26(1). pp. 157-177.

Nintendo (2020) Animal Horizon: New Horizons, video game, Nintendo Switch. Kyoto: Nintendo.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology, Personal, PhD Life

Archaeology in a Time of Crisis

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick1 Comment on Archaeology in a Time of Crisis

“When future archaeologists stumble upon the archaeological record from this period, the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, what will they find…?”

There’s probably dozens of archaeologists out there with something like that sitting in their drafts. Hell, I spent a solid 5 minutes considering it myself before promptly shutting it down. “Not everything has to be made into a case study” has become a familiar refrain on social media, but it bears repeating here too.

Not everything has to be made into a case study.

It’s wild to think about the future, about hypothetical situations like the one above, in a time like this. But as I attempt to return to my work – PhD research into faunal remains used in funerary and ritual blah blah blah – I can’t think about the past either.

I’ll admit an archaeological and academic sin: I’ve kinda stopped caring about my research right now. Most of my research related books have been tossed aside, despite the vast amount of free time in lockdown I now have to read and notate them all.

Instead, I’ve turned to books on radical theory and praxis. Today alone, I finished my reread of Joyful Militancy by Nick Montgomery and carla bergman. As of the writing of this blog post, I’m nearly finished rereading Emergent Strategy and will next reread Pleasure Activism, both written by adrienne maree brown. I count these three as among my favourite books of all time, and reread them constantly.

Why? Because they give me hope. Because they imagine futures where we all live. Because if I’m gonna read theory., I want to read about the theories of transformative justice and emergent strategies, rather than theories behind taphonomic analysis.

I don’t want this to sound like I’m giving up on my academic work – on the contrary, it’s a place to centre myself during these times. Like a slab of marble that I’ve been slowly whittling away at for years to create an artistic masterpiece, I’ve been working on this thesis for so long that it feels foundational. It’s a part of me at this point, like it or not.

But I’m much more than that, too. I’ve spent most of the past year and a half trying to find the balance between procrastination and overworking. For PhD’s, this can be a difficult thing to do – the overworking culture is not only actively promoted within academia, but also actively rewarded too. Even now, folks are trying to find ways to continue ridiculously high levels of productivity…everything is fine, nothing has changed!

Since the pandemic hit the U.K., I think I’ve been forced to find that balance. Because at this point, that’s all I have with regards to responsibilities – I’m currently unemployed due to school closures, I have no social commitments as gatherings are banned…all I have is my research.

But not really. I spent an hour writing about a certain assemblage of faunal bones, and then got bored and went to water my plants and read a little. I came back to work eventually, but only when I wanted to. It felt…nice? Radical? Okay, maybe not radical, that sounds depressing…

I have no idea why I am writing this all down into a blog post. Maybe it’s because it’s easier to get this stuff out than have it rattling in my brain all week. Maybe I just want to be reassured by others that things will be okay. Maybe I just like attention – okay, that last one is definitely true.

It’s a difficult time for all of us, for others much more than the rest of us, and for a select few, not that difficult at all. But it’s also a particularly weird time for those of us who are trained to stick our heads and hands into the past, who end up overshooting and going straight to the future when we’re told to move beyond all that. It’s either “what do archaeologists know about pandemics in the past” or “what will archaeologists know about this pandemic in the future”…I think, for many of us, the present is the most difficult time to be in.

But we’re there now. Might as well embrace it.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology, Personal, PhD Life, Radical Archaeology

Digging While Depressed: Struggling with Fieldwork and Mental Health

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick

This post will be focused on dealing with mental illness, so if issues related to depression and anxiety are triggering to you, please feel free to skip today’s blog. Take care of yourself.

A few weeks ago, I was in Scotland doing fieldwork for the first time in years. Prior to this trip, I was under the impression that it would be a difficult one: I have a fear of both heights and enclosed spaces, so the idea that I would need to traverse steep paths along cliffs and work in narrow caves wasn’t particularly inviting to begin with. But I made the decision to go and excavate. Long story short, after a disastrous first day involving multiple injuries, a trip to the local hospital for x-rays, and an ill-timed panic attack climbing back up the steep side of a cliff, I asked to stay at our base camp to do faunal bone analysis rather than risk my mental and physical health getting to our excavation sites. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of this was falling into a depressive episode after a few weeks of being indoors doing work.

Long time readers of my blog will know that I’ve been upfront about my own mental illness in the past. In particular, I’ve talked about the way mental illness affects my work as an academic. However, one thing I’ve never talked about (or really considered, to be honest), was how mental illness can affect one’s fieldwork, as well as how fieldwork can exacerbate the negative effects of mental illness.

Physical health and safety has always been the forefront of conversations regarding fieldwork, no matter what science you practice. However, there has been less attention given to mental illness, at least from what I’ve experienced. I started the #DiggingWhileDepressed hashtag during excavation to get the conversation going and was surprised at how many similar stories I heard on Twitter. It’s understandable, though, given the ubiquitous nature of fieldwork – you’re often isolated from your usual support group, and although you may have good relationships with your academic and research colleagues (as I do! again, my supervisory team is so supportive and generous with their help, I am forever grateful to them), it’s still not necessarily a group of people that you would confide your deepest problems and feelings to. Not to mention the fact that fieldwork (especially archaeological fieldwork) puts a significant amount of physical burden on you, which may make you feel worse, mentally.

With the advent of the #MeToo movement and the pressure being placed on organisations to combat sexual harassment and assault during excavation, I’d argue that we’ve started to see real strides in expanding the idea of a “safe” workspace and fieldwork environment to include not just physical health and safety, but also mental and emotional health as well. According to some via the #DiggingWhileDepressed hashtag, commercial excavation movements have started to take notice of mental health during fieldwork, which is a welcome change. I don’t really have any answers to solving this issue – after all, I’m learning along with everyone else – but hopefully just the fact that we are starting to have this conversation is a sign of real change and movement towards safeguarding all aspects of health while out in the field.

Feel free to add to the #DiggingWhileDepressed hashtag – not just with regards to archaeological excavation, but any type of fieldwork or research work. Let’s keep the conversation going, whether you have a story to tell or advice to give – in solidarity, we can grow and help each other out. And feel free to contact me if you ever need someone to talk or vent to – obviously I’m not a health professional and cannot replace seeking professional help, but I can at least offer my ear and my support.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology, Personal, PhD Life

When the Stress of the PhD Meet The Anxiety of the Visa: On International Postgraduate Studies, Financial Anxieties, and Everything Else That Scares Me

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick1 Comment on When the Stress of the PhD Meet The Anxiety of the Visa: On International Postgraduate Studies, Financial Anxieties, and Everything Else That Scares Me

This week I had scheduled a different blog post to be published, but I felt as though it didn’t seem right to not write about something that has been on my mind lately.

And by “lately”, I mean “for the past few years”.

As many, if not all, of you know by now due to reading this blog and/or following my daily Twitter rants, I’m an international student. Since moving to the U.K. in the autumn of 2015, I have been on two different visas and had spent lots of loaned money to maintain my residence here.

There’s recently been a lot of discourse surrounding the precariousness of early career jobs in academia, and for good reason – the further marketisation of higher education is leaving more and more post-PhDs out in the cold with only poorly paid, short contract jobs to live on. Those of us in the middle of PhD research have extremely bleak futures ahead of us if this continues.

What hasn’t gotten as much attention (at least, as far as I have seen) is the plight of those of us who are battling the dire circumstances of the academic job market and the burden of being international.

Let me first say that despite the difficulties I have faced, I am undoubtedly one of the luckier ones. I’ve had the ability to take out federal student loans to cover my costs, as well as financial help and general support from friends and family from both sides of the Pond. Coming from the US, I most likely had less hoops to jump through to get my visa, in comparison to many others.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a huge burden on my life. Besides worrying about my current PhD work and the near future of having to look for postdocs afterwards, I also constantly have to worry about meeting the conditions for my visa.

Will I have enough money saved up to afford all of the fees for applying for a Tier 2 visa? What if the NHS surcharge continues to double, as it is scheduled to do in the upcoming year? How many days have I spent outside the UK and is it enough to eventually deport me?

International academics are expected to constantly keep track of these ever changing laws and policies, which results in many of us in constant fear of the Home Office, even if we have filled out all the paperwork needed and have everything taken care of. It’s so easy for them to make a small change that will turn out world upside down!

That sounds like an exaggeration but I’ve experienced it myself. Progressing from my MSc to my PhD, I was, at the time, still on my first visa from the Masters programme, which wouldn’t expire for another 6 months. Prior to this, the rule was that you could apply for a new visa within the U.K. as long as your current visa had not expired. Unfortunately for me, this had recently changed, and so I was booking an extremely last minute flight back to the US to apply for a new visa. A couple thousand pounds later, and I was sorted with a new visa – but financially, I have yet to truly recover from that last minute trip.

And, of course, it’s not just about the financial burden, either. Contrary to popular belief, most of us who study and live in the U.K. for several years end up cultivating a life and family here. That the Home Office (and other institutions apparently) believe we can uproot our lives, tear ourself away from the people we love and abandon the places we call home, just because we lack the funds to match the ludicrous fees and financial objectives, is utterly ridiculous at best and outright evil at worst.

I have spent many nights, awake and afraid, obsessively reading the guidelines for visas and immigration laws. As someone who already has depression and anxiety, this has caused my mental health to often dip dangerously low, to levels I haven’t experienced since prior to being diagnosed and medicated. But it’s a real, tangible fear that many academics, who already experience the burdens of a hostile environment in higher education, always have on their minds alongside every other problem.

Unfortunately, I can’t really offer any answers or advice for this sort of thing. It’s an issue that, alongside precariousness of early academic careers, must be talked about more in the public discourse. And I guess that’s all I can do, really – tell my story, remain public about the challenges I face, and hope that I can at least be one voice that won’t shut up about this problem.

To end this rather unfunny and serious blog post (shocking, I know, but I applaud anyone who has made it this far), I just want to point out a few great resources for more information on precarity, mental health issues, and international academic costs:

  • The Mental Illness Factory – A great piece by Mimi Petrakis on the current mental health epidemic in academia, especially for postgraduates
  • The Precarious Postdoc – Some really valuable research by Sophie A. Jones and Catherine Oakley who have been interviewing and surveying the situations of postdocs in the humanities and social sciences.
  • International and Broke– A fairly new Twitter account run by international academics employed in the U.K. that shares stories of the difficulties that other international academics have experienced in trying to stay and work in the country.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology

Returning to the Classics: A Brief Look at My Non-Career as a Classical Archaeologist as a Trip around the Met Museum

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick1 Comment on Returning to the Classics: A Brief Look at My Non-Career as a Classical Archaeologist as a Trip around the Met Museum
Returning to the Classics: A Brief Look at My Non-Career as a Classical Archaeologist as a Trip around the Met Museum

For Heritage UX’s blogging carnival on exhibit interactivity and archaeology, I thought it might been fun to highlight artefacts on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

Why?

Well, even though I no longer study as a classical archaeologist, there are a few pieces that I spent a lot of my undergrad year studying, both academically and just for fun, as I found them to be incredibly inspiring.

Even now as a zooarchaeologist, I still think of these pieces as inspirations – without them, I’m not even sure if I would have found as much interest in archaeology.

Here’s a selection of my favourites:

Statue of Kaipunesut – this wood statue from Egypt (ca. 2528 BCE) was the subject of my first ever archaeology paper and so the statue’s had a place in my heart ever since. Looking back, I think those cracks in the wood that I obsessed over in my paper led to my eventual obsession with bone fragmentation.

Marble relief with a dancing Maenad – Attributed to ca. 27 BCE, this piece has always been an absolute favourite of mine and set off a complete obsession with drapery in portraiture. That these ancient artists could so perfectly convey the softness and the flow of draped clothing has always blown my mind and nearly became my thesis paper!

Bronze statuette of a veiled and masked dancer – Halfway through my BA, I took a course in Hellenistic archaeology and not only got to flex my cultural studies skills, but I also found more drapery-based artefacts to obsess over! There’s something about these dynamic, 3D pieces from the past that really makes me realise how amazing it is that I can experience something from so long ago…a silly statement I know from someone who looks at old animal bones all day, but still! Every so often, you kinda sit back and go, “Wow”.

Temple of Dendur – Probably one of the most famous exhibits at the Met, the Temple of Dendur has been installed in its own room meant to provide a more immersive experience, with a human-made waterway surrounding the temple like the Nile. As I mentioned in the previous section, there’s something about these truly 3D pieces that make you come face to face with not only the past, but of the absolute privilege we, as archaeologists, have to interact with the past in the hands-on way that we do.

And on a more personal note, the Temple of Dendur was always a really peaceful place for me. As someone who lived 8 blocks away from the Met and was just coming to grips with worsening mental illness, this exhibit was often a refuge for me, to study or just chill out, away from the hectic city outside.

I hope you enjoyed this quick foray through some of my favourite classical archaeological pieces from the Metropolitan Museum – be sure to check out other blog posts written for this month’s blogging carnival hosted by Heritage UX!

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.