4.2. Click Here to Save the Past

Abstract

This chapter owes much to the trenchant criticism of Internet utopianism offered by Evgeny Morozov in his influential book, To Save Everything, Click Here (2014). As such, this essay reflects on some issues in the social and professional context of digital archaeology that rarely see public discussion. Digital archaeology is profoundly shaped by an institutional landscape that demands the commoditization, marketing, and branding of scholarship “as a service.” These forces make it extraordinarily difficult to sustain substantive and reflective intellectual engagement in our increasingly digitized discipline. As a strategy to overcome these issues, this contribution highlights why digital engagement requires much longer time scales in funding and greater professional commitment to recognizing the process and conduct of research rather than rewarding only the efficient production of measurable research outcomes.