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No. Nr (13), Oral History - Emotions 2019
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ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2018, No. (11), Cultural History of Knowledge

Michał Pawleta
The past for sale. Archaeology and its products in a consumer culture of contemporary Poland

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Keywords: commodification of the past, archaeological reconstructions, archaeological festivals, historical re-enactment, popular culture

Abstract:
Consumer culture exerts an overwhelming influence on the ways that govern human relationships with the past, causing the commodification and commercialization of the past. These phenomena should be defined as exposing, selling and consuming the past (history), knowledge about it and its material heritage as products of market value and undertaking efforts to make them a recognizable product. As a result of commercialization, the past and its relics are more and more often treated as a “resource” used for various purposes, and heritage as a deliberately created product, serving the satisfaction of human consumption needs, including the need for entertainment. In the article, I critically analyze various forms of social consumption of the past, investigated by archeology, in the form of, among others, archaeological reconstructions, spectacles and stagings in a form of archaeological festivals and historical reenactment presentations, and casual adaptation of the symbolism of the past in the context of popular culture. Commercialization of the past does not necessarily have a negative meaning and should only be associated with a profit-seeking motives. Commercial initiatives can often play an important role in transmitting knowledge about the past in an attractive way and creating images of the past that enable people a wide access to the past. Nevertheless, the of commodification of the past shows by its nature that the past for present-day people has acquired an exchange value.

About Author:
MICHAŁ PAWLETA – an archaeologist, assistant professor at the Institute of Archaeology of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Department of Theory and Methods in Archaeology. E-mail: mpawleta@amu.edu.pl. ORCID 0000-0002-0466-1901.
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