Extract of a letter to a colleague

I am more and more interested in psychoanalysis in the Lacanian way, but this is a hard subject. Yet, I feel that it is strategic for the future of knowledge, surprisingly... The subversive aspect of psychoanalysis (non incompatible with a phenomenological view, far from that, I believe) may be more explored in archaeology – ultimately, they are two different kinds of “excavating” the reality. I think that the impasse of archaeology may be overcome from outside, not just importing ideas or inventing easy metaphors, but going deep into the theory of the human being: what drives us to action, and to act together?... It is a philosophical question, for sure, and a very simple and old one. But archaeology is just a conventional field as any other of present social action. A submitted field, because serving the commodification of the world (tourism, animation for the media) and the need people have of fabulous discoveries (fantasy of a “last”/lost border: the past, a good place to colonize). Perhaps understanding better what drives us to archaeology in this neo-liberal society we may comprehend better why we have invented this field called archaeology, and play with it with more ease and happiness.

Photo: Raymond en Saskia
reprod. author.
Source: http://raym.deds.nl/indexeng.html