between the rock and the cold, cold sea

So.

(Wonderful placeholder of a word, so.)

So, last night I was at dinner-and-a-lecture with a social anthropologist from New Zealand. A fascinating woman: she'd agreed to talk to the archaeology society about modern approaches to Malta's Neolithic temples. Her interest is in the different narratives people construct around the past, their agendas, and the status and validity assigned to these different narratives.

One of the things that came up - not during the lecture, which was mainly about the different communities of Malta and how they relate to the temples: Catholic priests, archaeologists, foreign (British and American) pagans, tourists, the tiny (~200 people) indigenous pagan community, politicians, hunters and trappers and so on and so forth - but afterwards, in the course of the discussion over drinks, was the question of cultural appropriation.

Prof. Rountree is of Massey University in New Zealand. She mentioned, coming from New Zealand, where the question of cultural appropriation with regard to the Maori is very much hotly contested, that she expected to find a similar thing with regard to foreign interest in and use of the temples in Malta. But she didn't: she noted that the Maltese have been in the habit of assuming that these things are what foreigners are interested in, and - to a certain degree, until recent times - that what was indigenous to Malta, like the temples, was not valued as highly by the people in the way that, for example, the ancient remains of Britain were seen as valuable and important.

I thought that was interesting, me. I may have to check out her publications. Not that I need another area of interest. :)