Continuum or network of practice

An emerging perspective that sees archaeology as a continuum or network of practice. Emphasis is placed on situatedness, historicity and social contingency of archaeological work. Archaeological activities are viewed as acts of curation, whereby mediating objects are selected, interpreted, engaged with, transformed and ascribed new meanings in accordance with the particular methodological approaches employed. The mediating objects derived from a set of activities may then be leveraged as viable inputs for other activities, which may produce additional sets of outputs via their own investigative processes. Mediating objects may be accessed by multiple perspectives (by virtue of their externality, portability and indexicality) and their value may vary when incorporated into different sets of activities, according to the warrants, constraints and expectations that each activity entails. The processes involved in ensuring that mediating objects are compatible between perspectives are acts of collaboration, communication and community building.

Notion of segmentation / articulation?