The fusion of law and ethics in cultural heritage management: The 21st century confronts archaeology

Abstract

Archaeologists around the world face complex ethical dilemmas that defy easy solutions. Ethics and law entwine, yet jurisprudence endures as the global praxis for guidance and result. Global legal norms articulate ‘legal rights’ and obligations while codes of professional conduct articulate ‘ethical rights’ and obligations. This article underscores how a rights discourse has shaped the 20th century discipline and practice of archaeology across the globe, including in the design and execution of projects like those discussed in the Journal of Field Archaeology. It illustrates how both law and ethics have been, and still are, viewed as two distinct solution-driven approaches that, even when out of sync, are the predominant frameworks that affect archaeologists in the field and more generally. While both law and ethics are influenced by social mores, public policy, and political objectives, each too often in cultural heritage debates has been considered a separate remedy. For archaeology, there remains the tendency to turn to law for a definite response when ethical solutions prove elusive.

As contemporary society becomes increasingly interconnected and the geo-political reality of the 21st century poses new threats to protecting archaeological sites and the integrity of the archaeological record during armed conflict and insurgency, law has fallen short or has lacked necessary enforcement mechanisms to address on-the-ground realities. A changing global order shaped by human rights, Indigenous heritage, legal pluralism, neo-colonialism, development, diplomacy, and emerging non-State actors directs the 21st century policies that shape laws and ethics. Archaeologists in the field today work within a nexus of domestic and international laws and regulations and must navigate increasingly complex ethical situations. Thus, a critical challenge is to realign approaches to current dilemmas facing archaeology in a way that unifies the ‘legal’ and the ‘ethical’ with a focus on human rights and principles of equity and justice. With examples from around the world, this article considers how law and ethics affect professional practice and demonstrates how engagement with law and awareness of ethics are pivotal to archaeologists in the field.     

Culture and Politics,Behavior and Biology: Seeking Synthesis among Fragmentary Anthropological Perspectives on Hunter-Gatherers

Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer societies in the 20th–21st centuries are examples par excellence of cultural marginalization, domination, and resilience. This review of six recent works on hunter-gatherers—spanning Paleolithic archaeology, bioarchaeology, behavioral ecology, and cultural anthropology—underscores that human forager diversity can be explained neither by culturally embedded political processes nor by ecologically situated evolutionary factors alone. Yet, theoretical bridging frameworks remain elusive, with a narrowing but persistent culture-biology divide. Recent developments in evolutionary life-history theory provide a robust biocultural foundation for understanding human sociality and the symbolic constitution of embodied cultural practice.     

Legal realism and human rights

This essay uses Schmitt's work to cast new light on the relevance of the American legal tradition known as ‘legal realism’ for the history and analysis of human rights. It does so by exploring several of Schmitt's most famous criticisms of international law and human rights, and then suggests how they might correspond with a widespread critical legal tradition in the 1920s and 1930s. This essay describes in detail two fundamental features of this tradition: historicism and realism. It concludes by suggesting that a return to some of these earlier law writers and texts might be a more substantive way to develop a constructive critical position in the fields of human rights and international law than an overreliance on the politically provocative (and problematic) rhetorical flourishes of Carl Schmitt.     

低碳旅游:旅游产业生态化的战略选择

在旅游业中发展低碳经济与旅游产业生态化其本质是一致的,核心是旅游产业系统的生态化;构造旅游产业生态系统并形成物质、能源输入输出平衡的旅游产业价值链的全程生态化;旅游产业生态化是一个渐进和反生态性特征日趋削弱、生态性特征逐渐加强的过程。"低碳旅游"的核心是通过在旅游业内发展低碳经济、创新低碳技,术,改变发展模式,最大限度减少二氧化碳排放,是一种缓解旅游生态环境压力的新技术经济范式,是促进旅游产业生态化的战略选择和重要途径。需要因势利导地利用产品导向、环境管理、延伸生产者责任、环境伦理导向、应用科学技术等的策略促进旅游产业生态化发展。     

生态旅游及其景观生态学透视

在简单介绍生态旅游的产生及其与可持续旅游关系,以及简要总结生态旅游定义的基础上,本文尝试从旅游供给方、旅游需求方即旅游者和综合层次三个方面对生态旅游进行定义,可以概括为旅游者的旅游活动形式、生态旅游产品及其组合与可持续旅游思想在生态旅游目的地的综合和空间实现。在现代地理学与生态学结合下产生的景观生态学,既强调空间地域研究,又考虑生态学的思想和原则,为理解生态旅游的概念内涵提供了理论切入点。     

山东省未利用土地资源及可持续利用研究

山东省未利用土地资源数量少、类型多样、开发难度大,生态环境差,地域分异明显,本文在分析未利用土地的现状及基本特征的基础上,提出可持续开发利用对策。     

当代西方人文地理学研究动态——《人文地理学词典》评述

通过对约翰斯顿等人编著的《人文地理学词典》(第三版)的分析,揭示当今西方人文地理学的研究动态,指出中国人文地理学的发展差距。     

试论城市景观生态建设问题——以兰州市南北两山生态建设为例

本文阐述了景观生态学在城市景观生态建设中的应用。认为在城市景观生态建设中不仅要关注城市生态平衡,还要在生态建设规划中注重城市居民休憩园地(如城市森林公园、园林公园)建设,以及都市农业的协调发展等问题。     

《荆楚岁时记》岁首占候风俗的文献考辨

今传宝颜堂秘笈本《荆楚岁时记》记有古代岁首诸日特别是人日的年日称谓和占候习俗,对此,学者或以为其反映了失传的七日创世神话,或以为是岁占风俗,但是我们若从文献聚散及其反映的民俗传承历史加以考辨,可知《荆楚岁时记》原本并不具有占候文字,岁占民俗主要在宋代以后发展起来,隋唐以前的岁首诸日也基本是作为年日而存在的。