‘A masterpiece in political propaganda’ and a futile exercise in archaeological blogging

Doug Rocks-Macqueen (@openaccessarch) and Chris Webster (@ArcheoWebby) have meticulously (and patiently, up-to-the-last-minute) edited an open access book on blogging archaeology.

EuroMaidan propaganda in Moscow Museum

Discussing “I am a drop in the ocean”, its co-curator – the Deputy Director of Art Arsenal (Mystetskyi Arsenal), Alisa Lozhkina – regretted that they had not been able to find ‘at least one artist who would support the other side…. The other side had no face.’ Moscow Museum (Музее Москвы) has produced an ‘exhibition of artefacts from Maidan [Выставка артефактов с Майдана]’ that tells the story only from the other side. But its centrepiece, at least, is a most despicable lie.

Turkey: secret monitoring and blacklisting of researchers into Armenian Genocide

When I started Conflict Antiquities, I occasionally went “off-topic” and discussed Turkish state restrictions on freedom of expression and access to information, or deep state ultra-nationalist propaganda (including the pollution of the public domain with false information in order to trick other authorities into blocking visas for international work). Now, there is public evidence for secret anti-academic and un-academic action against research and teaching.

Occupy Gezi background, part one: protests and repression

I’ve written up a series of posts on Occupy Gezi. The first three are background pieces on the protests and their repression, the protesters and their politics, and the archaeology of Gezi Park. They’re tldr; and you don’t need to read them to read the “proper” posts on the economics and politics of archaeology; but I wanted simultaneously to summarise events, to challenge official narratives and to complicate media (and public) narratives, and to provide the historical context for the events.