Disciplinary Societies and Societies of Control

I know that many readers are probably tired of my flailing at the larger implications of a shift from analog archaeology to digital practices. As you can probably tell, I’m deep into metaphors, models, and analogies at this point without necessarily doing much to understand how digital technology has transform the character of archaeological knowledge or digital practices. Part of me wants to give up and shrug and just let this all go. After all, archaeology, like any modern discipline, always is renewing, changing, and expanding its practical and intellectual toolbox. 

On the other hand, every now and then I got back to a classic text like Gilles Deleuze’s “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (October 59 (1992), 3-7). (Hat tip to my colleague Sheila Liming for pointing me in the direction of this article). 

Deleuze argues that Foucault’s disciplinary societies organized around the image of the panopticon and characteristic of the 19th and early 20th century have given way to societies of control. Foucault’s disciplinary societies enclosed spaces of human interaction (in literal and figurative ways). The assembly line and the factory, for example, represented efforts to enclose the labor of groups of individuals and harness their labor for productive ends. In societies of control, which are characterized by the emergence of the “dividual” which have meaning only in constantly forming and reforming assemblage of data, masses, markets, and, in particular for Deleuze, the flow of capital the accumulates and disperses through banks.

Deleuze’s arguments ring particularly true for archaeology as the authority of the nation-state manifest itself over the course of the 19th and 20th century in part over its control over its archaeological heritage. These rights continue to be asserted through demands for repatriation, control over who can excavate and where, and rules that govern the formal dissemination of archaeological knowledge. Digital practices, however, do not so much as challenge these rights, as make them irrelevant. Ownership of a particular object becomes less significant when a micro-meter accurate scan of an object can produce replicas around the world. Control over excavation and survey within a sovereign territory becomes less valuable as satellite imagery and other increasingly advanced remote sensing techniques allows archaeologists to map and document archaeological remains without even setting foot on the ground. Finally, rules governing the dissemination of archaeological data remain bound – quite literally – to the paper of notebooks, journals, and final publications as opposed to the constant flow of provisional archaeological data that leaks across the internet on a daily basis ready for re-use, adaptation, and redistribution. 

I don’t have all of these ideas integrated into my critique of the digital in archaeological practice, but I feel like, at last, I’m making some progress. Stay tuned.