Archaeology and the fortress of rationality

My geographic focus here is Southeast Asia, a region where forced resettlement of people from archaeological conservation zones is by no means unknown today. There is, however, another dimension to fortress conservation in the Southeast Asian heritage field that, though less traumatic for those on its receiving end, is far more pervasive. I refer to a discursive barrier, erected by archaeologists and heritage practitioners, that excludes serious consideration of popular religion as a means by which old objects and places are contextualized within the world of everyday life. Citing the case of Thailand, I describe the ways in which people attribute magical supernatural qualities to the material past. I argue that we are prevented from acknowledging, let alone accepting, this situation because of the way our discourses are constituted in a secular-rationalist Western world view that grew out of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. This worldview not merely rejects the magical supernatural; to a significant extent it was founded upon this rejection.