How can archaeologists’ understanding of the past and the way we re-create the past in the present make the future a better place? What can heritage and archaeological practice offer to local and global policy makers? These aren’t just questions posed by John’s book, they also reflect current discourse in professional archaeology in the 21st century, in our exploration of ‘social value’ in archaeological practice, and the benefits archaeology can bring to society.
‘Wicked Problems’ articulates some answers to these questions, providing if not a manifesto, certainly a timely and galvanising call to action for archaeologists, the heritage sector, and for our future collaborators in academia, client organisations and government.
This inspiring book, which repositions archaeology as a future oriented discipline, argues that archaeology can help make the world ‘safer and healthier’. Through its unique superpowers of time perspective and potential to understand the complex relationship between humans and the environment, archaeological thinking can provide small pathways through the tangle of the world’s ‘wicked’ problems and offer, at a minimum, micro steps to significant progress, maybe more. The argument is set out clearly and convincingly, in a way we can all adopt and use.
In accessible language and conversational style, the book unwraps the ‘wickedness’ of wicked problems, a term used initially in the 1960s in the context of social challenges in urban development, but with wider definition in 21st century global development for problems that are complex, messy, ‘intractable, open ended and unpredictable’ and which require creativity to offer up possible solutions. Examples are provided in thematic chapters around climate change, environmental pollution, health and well-being, social injustice and conflict, where archaeological and heritage work has transformed understanding and provided tangible evidence of a contribution towards addressing the problem, albeit at the local scale, using so-called ‘small wins’. Comprehensive footnotes are in John’s conversational style and are as engaging as the text.
The book esteems and celebrates small wins and calls for their wider promotion, but also asks can we do more? – small wins are a framework, a pattern, but not a plan. Can we be more creative, more collaborative, more participative? How do we bring these small wins into the spaces where policy is written and new ideas take flight? Is it about reframing, educating and leading better, or something else? The idea of Policy Entrepreneurs in archaeology (individual influencers with coalitions of support and a strategic approach) is intriguing.
John acknowledges that he writes with his students in mind, but not necessarily always for them (suggestions at the end of the book for further debate are directed to corporate and professional readers as much as anyone). However, having finished the book, brain buzzing, you do have the sense that you’ve just walked out of an important and brilliant lecture, one I recommend to archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike.