K.G. Tomaselli

A case is made for research participants (normally known as ‘informants’, ‘subjects’, ‘objects’, ‘sources’, etc.) to be included in certain kinds of studies as co-authors and co-researchers. Self-narrative is examined from the perspectives of both the researchers and the researched. Engraved landscape, a post-positivist visual archaeology anthology, is our case study that draws on long-term lived field research amongst the ǂKhomani Bushmen.

This article critically examines the conventional researcher-researched relationship that empowers the researcher over the researched. The orthodoxy of objectivity - claimed to locate the researchers as neutral observer - is here argued to be a power relation that has an excluding effect where subject communities are concerned. By means of an archaeological case study that included mapping and interpretation of ancient rock engravings we offer a new way of negotiating interpretations.