Human Bridges interview with Gary Feinman

Recently, Jan Ritch-Frel, Executive Director of the Independent Media Institute, interviewed Gary Feinman, MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American, and East Asian Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and CfAS Board member, as part of the Human Bridges project. The thrust of the interview, termed “The Great Archaeological Discovery of Our Time,” focused on harnessing the vast amount of archaeological data now available to address contemporary issues. As Ritch-Frel succinctly put it: “It’s [archaeological data] socially useful information that we can plug into improving our lives.” Feinman argues “that recent policies and beliefs regarding inequality, globalism, democracy, and migration have been birthed from disciplines like economics, politics, and law, which are grounded in Eurocentric ideas and assumptions.” It is now time to enter “a new conceptual development that aligns with what we know, in which we expand and integrate theoretical ideas drawn from economics and politics. And we can temper them with the diversity in practices and institutions that have been documented by archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists.” There is a lot in the interview for CfAS members to ponder. The full interview can be found here.