Since I missed the February question for the Blogging Carnival I figured I should try and make the March one…who cares if it’s actually April?
Doug asks us a question this month that reaches into the future of archaeology in the digital world. He asks; “Where are you/we going with blogging or would you it like to go?”
Where am I going with this blog?
I originally intended for this to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek blog poking a little fun at the crazy theories out there. The longer I do this, the less I make fun and the more I seriously break things down. There are people out there who really believe this stuff, and as mind boggling as that is, you can’t just make fun of them, you have to reach out and try and correct those misperceptions. I’ve worked more towards that end the last few years, with varying degrees of success.
I also notice a severe deficit of information out there about women in archaeology and their contributions to the field, and rectifying that has become a side project of the blog for a while now. I don’t have as much up there as I would like, but I already have more than a lot of academic sites (which I find very sad.)
More forward than Back.
So to answer Doug’s question, I’m going to do more of that, moving forward. I’m out of school for the time being, I’ve got lots of free time (which a blog eats btw), and I’ve got lots of plans. I’d also like to build a community around addressing pseudoarchaeology and its kin. I’d like to host it here at my blog. I’d like it to be tolerant, but factual. The trick is finding other archaeologists and academics that are willing to address it.
You Crazy Kids and Your Blogs.
As to the larger question of where is the archaeology community going with this blogging thing? Full steam ahead! This Carnival has been a great thing and has shown how much of a community there is out there not just talking about weird stuff in archaeology, but also technical questions, academic questions, and various other dead things. It’s great, I want more of that! I want to send folks to other blogs and know those bloggers are not crackpots and they have solid facts, and I can.
I’d also like to see blogs et al more accepted within the academic community. I’ve got two professors that blog and that’s it. I am the only person in my graduating class that blogs, tweets, or anything. There is not enough engagement here, there needs to be more. I know it’s getting better slowly, but social media changes so rapidly that by the time we drag the majority of our academics into the digital world, the world will have moved on, and we’ll be right back where we started. So let’s get them blogging now, get them tweeting, Tumblr-ing, YouTubeing, Podcasting, etc.
I propose approaching your favorite Prof or Academic and offering to team up. Offer to help, offer to host, or ask to just interview them fairly. Don’t give up easily, it only takes seven days on average to learn a new technology, ask them to try it for a week, a month, a year, and then let them bail (I bet they won’t at that point).
Anyway, that’s where I see my blog and where I’d like to see the community as a whole go. If you’re interested in helping out or just getting started, email me at archyfantasies@gmail.com or if you can go blog with ArcheoWebby at his new Blogging Collective , it’s more field related and less pseudoarchaeology related. Send your professors, your class mates, your students, your crew chief, and your fellow field techs!
Archaeological Fantasies 