Much needed within scholarship related to archaeology, the construction of nations, and the politics of epistemic practice, the two books under review—Bureaucratic archaeology and Archaeology, nation, and race—are certainly welcome additions. The first, by Ashish Avikunthak, is a deep and engaged ethnographic study of the ways by which the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) produces archaeology, and links it to religiosity, at the excavation site. Through this study, Avikunthak lays open “this social, cultural, and scientific universe of postcolonial archaeologies and demonstrate the impact of bureaucratic ontologies on epistemological practices” (p. xix). The second volume, co-authored by Raphael Greenberg and Yannis Hamilakis, can be considered autoethnographic, fashioned around conversations during a seminar at Brown University. In a series of fascinating chapter-conversations, they provide nuance to otherwise very difficult, slippery and easily conflated arguments that bring together and reflect upon the histories of archaeological imaginaries and contemporary politics of Greece and Israel/occupied Palestine. Both texts are grounded in an ethnographic modality that allows for clarity of their epistemic critiques of the nation. It is remarkable how much political work both texts are doing by carefully holding and contextualising history and contemporary politics, while also providing critical insights into the ways in which archaeology is used to further the politics of the nation.

在与考古学、国家建设和认知实践政治相关的学术研究中非常需要，正在审查的两本书——官僚考古学和考古学、民族和种族-当然是受欢迎的补充。第一个，由 Ashish Avikunthak 撰写，是对印度考古调查 (ASI) 在发掘现场进行考古并将其与宗教信仰联系起来的方式的深入而引人入胜的民族志研究。通过这项研究，Avikunthak 揭示了“后殖民考古学的社会、文化和科学领域，并展示了官僚本体论对认识论实践的影响”（第 xix 页）。第二卷由拉斐尔·格林伯格 (Raphael Greenberg) 和雅尼斯·哈米拉基斯 (Yannis Hamilakis) 合着，可以被视为民族志自传，围绕布朗大学研讨会期间的对话而形成。在一系列引人入胜的章节对话中，它们为原本非常困难的人提供了细微差别，狡猾且容易混为一谈的论点，这些论点汇集并反思了希腊和以色列/被占领巴勒斯坦的考古想象和当代政治的历史。这两个文本都以民族志模式为基础，这使得他们对国家的认知批判变得清晰。值得注意的是，这两个文本都通过仔细把握历史和当代政治并将其背景化来做大量的政治工作，同时还提供了对考古学用于促进国家政治的方式的批判性见解。