| This project examines the document technology of forms in the production of knowledge about Pompeii, Italy, both as an archaeological site and as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has been suggested that it is in written documents, or "artifacts of the organization," where the institution makes itself manifest, "a tangible reality," and "renders sensorial organizational control perceptible" (Strati 1999:159). Through a discursive and aesthetic analysis of this document technology, I hope to call into question the taken-for-granted nature of the form, helping us to better understand its constructedness. Further, my intent is to demonstrate the far reaching consequences of the form---from knowledge production on the ground at Pompeii to knowledge production of Pompeii as universal heritage.;This study employed a variety of data collection methods, including ethnographic interviews, participant observation, archival research, as well as a discursive analysis of the literature and various documents and forms collected at both an ongoing excavation and UNESCO's World Heritage. Photographic documentation was also engaged to capture "science in action" (Latour 1987).;My findings reflect a process that I term the bureaucratization of archaeology. The bureaucratization of archaeology refers not only to archaeology's enrollment in institutional projects such as UNESCO World Heritage, but the introduction of bureaucratic methods, techniques, and aesthetics into the professional work practice of archaeology. I seek to demonstrate the concept of the bureaucratization of archaeology in-action through an analysis of its primary instrument of rationalization: the form. As an instrument of rationalization, I find that forms stabilize otherwise slippery information upon which we make our knowledge claims. |
