The global politics of English as a dominant academic language

PCRAs arose largely in Britain during the 1990s in response to an academic environment dominated by a simple monolithic concept of Roman identity and social change. The approach to Romanization at this time was deeply entangled with ideas of civilizing missions that had lived on beyond the collapse of British imperial rule (Cunliffe Reference Cunliffe1984; Reece Reference Reece1982; cf. Hingley Reference Hingley1989, 1). The publication of Martin Millett's The Romanization of Britain (1990) spearheaded a new agenda that called these imperial pasts into question. Millett retained the use of the concept of Romanization, but others used his stimulating contribution to develop approaches that avoided using the term, drawing attention to the constraints that it places upon analysis (for recent summaries of these works see Gardner Reference Gardner2013, 3–6; Laurence Reference Laurence2012, 62–73). A group of archaeologists, led by Eleanor Scott, launched their campaign to introduce theory to Roman archaeology at the first Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (Scott Reference Scott1993). They were seeking new ways to break out of the restrictions created by over-definitive and inflexible accounts of the Roman past. The creation of TRAC directly resulted in the development of another new initiative, the Roman Archaeology Conference, which first convened in 1995. TRAC has continued to meet in the UK and overseas and new directions of study have been developed at subsequent meetings. The Critical Roman Archaeology Conference, held in Stanford (California) in 2008, was an offshoot of TRAC that developed an explicitly theoretical focus for the Roman archaeology of the Mediterranean (Lafrenz Samuels and Totten Reference Lafrenz Samuels and Totten2012).

I am not convinced by Versluys's idea that the critical debates of Romanization represent a specifically ‘Anglo-Saxon’ concern. Recent publications indicate that PCRAs form part of an expanding and transnational body of research within a broader field of classical studies (e.g. Dietler Reference Dietler2010; Garraffoni and Funari Reference Garraffoni and Funari2012; González Ruibal Reference González-Ruibal, Lydon and Rizvi2010; Hales and Hodos Reference Hodos, Hales and Hodos2010; Hardwick and Gillespie Reference Hardwick and Gillespie2007; Janković and Mihajlović, forthcoming; Lafrenz Samuels and Totten Reference Lafrenz Samuels and Totten2012; Orells, Bhambra and Roynon Reference Orrells, Bhambra and Roynon2011). In addition, the number and character of these works seems to challenge the idea that post-colonial approaches are stultifying new research focused on the Roman Empire. It is certainly true that not all the contributions to the volumes listed above support or acknowledge the agendas developed through PCRAs. Indeed, I recognize many of the issues addressed in Versluys's paper from discussions at two of the recent conferences that feature in this list. The agendas outlined by PCRAs, however, are encouraging and provoking researchers to articulate new accounts by drawing upon and/or contradicting what some see as dominant perspectives in Roman archaeology.

I suspect that there may be a more insidious issue at play in the spread of PCRAs, relating to the role of English as the dominant language of academic communication (cf. Sonntag Reference Sonntag2003). Academic practice directly encourages archaeologists from across the world to communicate in this global language, a process that may also promote the adoption of academic research questions, theories and methods that predominate in English-speaking countries (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014a). Rather than facing a climate of academic stagnation, however, I perceive a broadening out of research agendas and a healthy intellectual debate that is crossing international and conceptual boundaries. Debate and discussion may help to ensure that this body of scholarship does not become too random and chaotic, although part of our agenda, I feel, should be to support the opening up of debates that focus upon the meaning(s) of the Roman past (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014b).

Relating the Roman past to the global present

Versluys aims to use globalization theory and material-culture studies to build a new approach to the Roman Empire drawing upon the idea of objects in motion. I agree that it is useful to adopt globalization theory to interpret the Roman Empire. Versluys mentions that little detailed work has yet been undertaken to assess the relevance of globalization theory to Roman archaeology but that momentum is evidently increasing (e.g. Pitts and Versulys Reference Pitts and Versluys2014). As Versluys notes, I made an early contribution to this debate (Hingley Reference Hingley2005), but my perspective differs from his in that it focuses upon the entanglement of our understandings of the Roman past with concepts derived from the global present (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014b). The Graeco-Roman past has long provided a rich range of powerful tools and metaphors for people across the West, and the reworking of these concepts in the transforming researches of Roman archaeologists requires especially careful handling. This is because we continue to live with the consequences of Roman expansion, since later societies have picked up, adopted and transformed Roman concepts, practices and materials (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014b; Morley Reference Morley2010).

In her article ‘Value and significance in archaeology’, Katherine Lafrenz Samuels (Reference Lafrenz Samuels2008, 88) has outlined an approach based on the idea of source criticism that I shall explore here (cf. Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014b). She argues that it is good to reconstruct the past by seeking to excise contemporary influences and by working back critically through the historical sources and material remains. This is how archaeological and classical scholarship has often operated, by using the idea that it is possible to construct an authentic past that can effectively be divided from the present as a result of detailed, scholarly research. Lafrenz Samuels observes, however, that to ‘argue that reconstructions of the past should be free of value judgements ignores the fact that archaeology is shaped by its practices and exists in a social context that is decidedly contemporary’ (ibid). This is the main reason why the past is regularly reinterpreted – changes in the way that the present is perceived within society are reflected in changing understandings of the past (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014b). Lafrenz Samuels (Reference Lafrenz Samuels2008, 88) continues by observing that the insistence that there is a strict separation between past and present ‘considerably restricts the tools we have available for analysis’. This acknowledges that the present context deeply impacts on the pasts that we create and that the analysis of this interrelationship can reap rich rewards. She promotes ‘a dialogical conversation between past and present’ that ‘blurs those barriers . . . to show their interconnectedness, without disregarding their differences’ (ibid.). Extending this approach to consider how materials derived from the Roman Empire can be addressed, I have directed my attention to consider the origins and meanings of some of the concepts that lie at the core of Roman studies (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014b).

The deconstruction of Romanization in England focused upon uncovering the ways in which the theories and practices of Roman archaeology were entangled with the ‘imperial discourse’ of Victorian and Edwardian society, providing imperial narratives that had deep relevance to the creation and maintenance of British imperial order at home and overseas (Hingley Reference Hingley2005, 28). The idea that we have moved on to a ‘post-colonial’ age is not universally agreed upon (cf. Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014a), but the agenda in Roman archaeology has changed over the course of the past 30 years. First PCRAs came to prominence and now a number of scholars are promoting the relevance of globalization theory (Pitts and Versluys Reference Versluys, Pitts and Versluys2014). We do not all agree how new approaches to globalizing Roman society should be achieved, but there seems to be consensus that we cannot avoid drawing upon ideas derived from globalization; this results from the idea that global conceptions are omnipresent in our societies, making it inevitable that globalization theory will influence current research and writing.

The explicit adoption of globalization theory requires a clear acknowledgement of the influence of the present on interpretations of the past. Post-colonial theory, globalization and Romanization are approaches that have been developed in modern times to make sense of the ancient world and we need to consider how the adoption of such concepts impacts on the types of past society that they help us to (re-)create. It is not necessary to interpret the relationship between Romanization, PCRAs and globalization as a simple chronological procession of successive theories through time. For example, Versluys tries to argue the continuing value of Romanization through an engagement with globalization theory and material-culture studies. I prefer to link the post-colonial to the global, but to sideline Romanization to the field of historiographical study. The introduction to a recent study, The post-colonial and the global (Krishnaswamy Reference Krishnaswamy, Krishnaswamy and Hawley2008, 2–3), addresses the relationship of these bodies of theory across the humanities and social sciences, suggesting that works in globalization theory often tend to pursue a ‘brazenly positivistic’ perspective and that this contrasts with the ‘deconstructive or hermeneutic’ focus explicit in much post-colonial theory. I propose that the development of theory in Roman archaeology can seek to work across the divide between positivism and deconstruction by exploring how present and past are interconnected, without losing sight of the possibility of establishing differences (for a focus on difference see Terrenato Reference Terrenato, Hurst and Owen2005).

Interrogating the past and understanding the present

The idea that we need not insist on a strict separation between past and present communicates new possibilities by emphasizing the creative and transformative character of the theories we use to study classical Rome. A number of scholars have argued in conversation with me that, since my generation has spilt so much ink to deconstruct the concept of Romanization, we can now move forward to develop approaches that build upon this term without reproducing the forms of bias inherent in earlier writings. It is also clear (as Versluys emphasizes) that Romanization continues to form part of the academic vocabulary in many parts of the Mediterranean and in France and Germany. Indeed, a resistant group of researchers continues to draw upon ‘Romanization’ in the UK, although this is largely an undercover movement. The reason why I feel that Romanization theory is unnecessary today is clearly addressed by the approach that Versluys adopts in his paper. Much of what he writes about material culture in the Roman world seems to decentre the idea of Roman identity to the extent that the empire seems Roman in name only (cf. Hingley Reference Hingley2005, 102). Why, therefore, do we need to use the concept of Romanization, apart from when we explore past research traditions? I should also say that I have no particular objection to people continuing to use this term, but that it does not fit with the type of perspective that I seek to develop.

I do agree with Versluys, however, that other core terms in Roman studies also require deconstruction. Versluys suggests that it would be useful to develop ‘critical deconstructions and intellectual contextualizations’ of Anglo-Saxon Roman archaeology to match those undertaken within the former traditions of the study of Romanization (p. 7). In this context, he argues that the concepts of ‘imperialism’ and ‘colonialism’, on which much of this scholarship has been based, should be done away with since they are rooted in ‘19th-century nation-state discourses and their 20th-century deconstructions’ (p. 10). He also aims to justify reintroducing the use of Romanization as a concept, but this particular term was a product of the same 19th-century nationalist and imperialist discourses that created the terms that Versluys asks us to abandon (Hingley Reference Hingley2005, 37–40; Mouritsen Reference Mouritsen1998). I agree that PCRAs cannot be immune from the deconstructive focus inherent in the logic that this work purports to develop.

I wonder whether the combining of globalization theory with the critical perspectives inherent in post-colonial theory may allow the creation of approaches that enable the further spread of the critical and experimental programme of research that I outlined in reference to recent publications at the start of this contribution. This may also be serving, at least to a degree, to decentre the power relations inherent in academia as a result of the current role of English as a dominant language. Or perhaps this argument is politically just too naive in a world in which power relations are subject to continuous transformation and obfuscation (Hingley Reference Hingley, Pitts and Versluys2014a).