There was a story several weeks ago about demands for reburial of human bones by Pagans in the UK. I’ve got two episodes of Clioaudio talking about that. The first is live now, with Yvonne Aburrow talking about the diversity of Pagan beliefs and how she’d solve the problem. The next episode will be an interview with Emma Restall-Orr on her work with the Manchester Museum in presenting Lindow Man.
Things I’ve learned? I need to multi-track interviews. At the moment recording puts everything from the interviewees and myself onto the same audio track. This means that if I have a coughing fit I could drown out the other person. This is a fixable problem. A better microphone stand might also be a good idea.
Interview technique is only going to come with practice so my thanks go to Yvonne and Emma for being willing guinea-pigs. There’s stuff they’ve said that I disagree with, for instance I’m really not convinced that postmodernism meaningfully exists as a philosophical argument. It’s a category that seems as coherent as Anglophonic Philosophy as far as I can tell and I’ll write more about that some time in the future.
I also didn’t really press them on evidence for their beliefs. I think if I’d talked to someone who was demanding mass reburial, then I would because How do you know it’s the right thing? becomes an important question if it stops you doing other things with the bones. But neither interviewee is making that demand, so how you work alongside people and include them in archaeology is the more interesting discussion.
Also from Episode 5 I’ll try and talk more slowly.
Download links and links to related sites can be found at Clioaudio.
