Shared histories : rethinking 'colonized' and 'colonizer' in the archaeology of colonialism

In this chapter, I want to explore a framework which was developed to deal with the archaeology and heritage of cross-cultural interactions in the cattle and sheep ranching ('pastoral') industries of Australia to suggest some ways in which archaeology might trouble some of these idealized notions of 'colonizer' and 'colonized', and in doing so, contribute to the development of archaeological and postcolonial theory more generally. ¬This framework acknowledges the need to simultaneously explore the various strategic and mundane ways in which both colonized and colonizer engage with their social and Indigenous worlds (e.g. Silliman 2001, 2005, 2010) and express notions of individual and group identity, while attempting to deal with the very real inequalities and conflicts which characterize colonial and postcolonial relations of difference (González-Ruibal 2010).