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Andrew Bauer

photo of Andrew Bauer

Andrew Bauer

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2010
Research Interests: 
Political Ecology, Nature/Culture, Environmental Anthropology, Materiality, Space/Place/Landscape, Archaeological Theory, South Asia

About

Andrew Bauer is an anthropological archaeologist whose research and teaching interests broadly focus on the archaeology of human-environment relations, including the socio-politics of land use and both symbolic and material aspects of producing spaces, places, and landscapes. Andrew's primary research is based in South India, where he co-directs fieldwork investigating the relationships between landscape history, cultural practices, and institutionalized forms of social inequalities and difference during the region’s Neolithic, Iron Age, Early Historic, and Medieval periods. As an extension of his archaeological work he is also interested in the intersections of landscape histories and modern framings of nature that relate to conservation politics and climate change.

Selected Articles

(in press) Remote sensing soils and social geographies of difference: The landscape archaeology of regur from Iron Age through Medieval Period northern Karnataka, southern India. Journal of Field Archaeology. 

(in press) Questioning a posthumanist political ecology: Ontologies, environmental materialities, and the political in Iron Age South India. In Uneven Terrain: Archaeologies of Political Ecology in Comparative Perspective, edited by Millhauser, J.K., Morehart, C.T., and S. Juarez. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (AP3A). Washington DC.

(in press) On the matter of resources and techno-politics: The case of water and iron in the South Indian Iron Age. American Anthropologist (coauthored with P.J. Johansen).

(in press) The Anthropocene divide: obscuring understanding of socio-environmental change. Current Anthropology (coauthored with E.C. Ellis)

2016   Provincializing the littoral in Indian Ocean heritage: coastal connections and interior contexts of the Southern Deccan. In Bridging The Gulf: Maritime Cultural Heritage Of The Western Indian Ocean, edited by H.P. Ray, pp. 101-119. New Delhi: Manohar.

2016   How things act: An archaeology of materials in political life. Journal of Social Archaeology 16 (2): 115-141. (coauthored with S. Kosiba)

2016   Welfare and the politics and historicity of the Anthropocene. South Atlantic Quarterly 115 (1): 61-87. (coauthored with M. Bhan)

2016   Toward the social significance of Iron Age megalithic complexes: the case of Hire Benakal—Koppal District, Karnataka. In Contextualizing Material Culture in South and Central Asia in Pre-Modern Times, edited by V. Widorn, U. Franke, and P. Latschenberger, pp. 227-238. Turnout, Belgium: Brepols.

2016   Water management and reservoirs in India and Sri Lanka. In Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, edited by H. Selin, pp. 4376-4385. Dordrecht: Springer. (coauthored with K.D. Morrison) 

2015/16   Questioning the Anthropocene and its silences: Socioenvironmental history and the climate crisis. Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 3: 403-426.

2015   Prehistoric mortuary practices and the constitution of social relationships: Implications of the first radiocarbon dates from Maski on the occupational history of a South India "type-site." Radiocarbon 57 (4): 795-806. (coauthored with P. Johansen).

2015   Iron Age settlement and land use in Southern India: Recent survey evidence from Koppal District, Karnataka. In South Asian Archaeology 2012, vol. Man and environment in Prehistoric and Protohistoric South Asia: New Perspectives, edited by V. Lefèvre, B. Mutin & A. Didier., pp. 35-48. Turnhout: Brepols (Serie Indicopleustoi).

2015   Beyond culture history at Maski: Ancient land use, settlement, and social differences in Neolithic through Medieval South India. Archaeological Research in Asia 1: 6-16. (coauthored with P. Johansen)

2014   Landscapes of heritage and landscapes of practice: Contextualizing the megaliths of Hire Benakal. In Indian World Heritage Sites in Context, edited by H.P. Ray and M. Kumar, pp. 45-71. New Delhi: National Monuments Authority and Aryan Books International.

2014   Impacts of Mid- to Late-Holocene land use on residual hill morphology: A remote sensing and archaeological evaluation of human-related soil erosion in Central Karnataka, South India. The Holocene 24 (1): 3-14.

2013   Mapping the political landscape: Toward a GIS analysis of environmental and social difference. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20: 61-101. (coauthored with S. Kosiba).

2013   Assessing anthropogenic soil erosion with multi-spectral satellite imagery: An archaeological case study of long-term land use in Koppal District, northern Karnataka. In South Asian Archaeology 2007, Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of The European Association of South Asian Archaeology, Volume I: Prehistoric Periods, edited by D. Frenez and M. Tosi, pp. 67-75. Oxford: Archaeopress-BAR International Series. (coauthored with Kathleen Morrison).

2013   Contextualizing megalithic places: survey, mapping, and surface documentation in the environs of Hire Benakal. Man and Environment 38(2): 46-61. (coauthored with M. Trivedi).

2013   The Maski Archaeological Research Project: Investigating the long term dynamics of settlement, politics, and environmental history in ancient South India. Antiquity 87 (336). (coauthored with P. Johansen)

2011   Producing the political landscape: Monuments, labor, water, and place in Iron Age central Karnataka. In The Archaeology of Politics: the Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past., edited by P.G. Johansen and A.M. Bauer., pp. 83-113. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2011   Reconfiguring 'politics' in the reconstruction of past political production. In The Archaeology of Politics: the Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past., edited by P.G. Johansen and A.M. Bauer, pp. 1-28. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.