A Kallen
Biographic Data
| ID | 142936 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Kallen |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Kallen |
| SIGNATURE | KALLEN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4835-9552 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Engaging with palaeogenomics beyond the lab
As ancient DNA (aDNA) science enters a new phase of computational and institutional power, what should social scientists and humanities scholars focus on? This article identifies questions that examine the relationships between scientists, research participants, communities and publics, and how these groups engage with, appropriate or resist palaeogenomic accounts of the past. We outline four areas for research: the social relations underlying da…
Reply to Menéndez et al
Petrous Fever
This article explores how the competitive quest for bone samples used in genomic analyses of ancient DNA (aDNA) creates a pressing concern for anthropological research. It investigates the premises and effects of this phenomenon-a global hunt for petrous bones as treasured sources of DNA resembling a gold fever-from the situated perspectives of archaeologists and curators of ancient human remains. We present findings from an anonymous questionnai…
I am a Viking! DNA, popular culture and the construction of geneticized identity
In this article, we analyze how genetic genealogy reshapes popular notions of historical identity, as it facilitates a genetically informed understanding of ethnicity and ancestry. Drawing on interviews with Swedish, British and American individuals who have employed genetic ancestry tests (GATs) to prove ancestral connections to Vikings, we explore how the desire to “be a Viking” is articulated through a convergence of pre-existing discourses ar…
Creolised Swedish Archaeology
This is on one level a story of a meeting between Swedish archaeologists, Laotian archaeologists and villagers in the Ban Nabong village in central Laos. It is also about the structurcs of Swedish archaeology, as revealed in this meeting with alternative views of the past and its material remains. Two central concepts: eaolisatinn and crenlisnrion, are derived from the so-called post-colonial theory to serve as models for describing different att…
A Hobbling Marriage
In the late 19th century, the new Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm was a cutting-edge institution for the presentation of ideas of a universal human development from primitive to modern —ideas that were at the heart of the European colonial project. We argue that the archaeological collections with their unaltered 19th-century structures still represent a narrative that reproduces a colonial understanding of the world, a linear arrange…
A Plea for Critique
Introduction
Laos
Archaeogenetics in Popular Media
If most academic debates surrounding the recent boom of ancient DNA (aDNA) so far have concerned conflicting research epistemologies, this article is a call for taking aspects of media and communication more seriously. Analyzing the fates of two recent research papers on Viking Age Scandinavia, we show how aDNA research is communicated, narrated and infused with meaning in the public sphere, particularly in relation to popular narratives and poli…
Protecting Siam's heritage
Before I accepted the proposal to review this book, I wrote to the review editor to make sure that it would be fine to write something rather critical about it. Judging from the title, cover photo
Postcolonial Theory and Sami Archaeology--A Commentary
Translated Objects
This article explores the movements of archaeological and ethnographic objects and museum collections connected with the Swedish-born archaeologist and ethnographer Olov R. T. Janse (1892–1985). Janse pursued a cosmopolitan career in the years between 1920 and 1960, in and between the national contexts of Sweden, France, Indochina, the Philippines, and the United States, where he found himself in different political contexts such as colonialism, …
The invisible archaeologist
Drawing on 81 original letters written by an executive member of staff at UNESCO's Secretariat 1946-1947, this article aims to deneutralize the work of individual scholars and intellectuals in the officially neutral and invisible Secretariat, and situate the foundational work of UNESCO in the reality of post-war Paris. Olov R. T. Janse, a Swedish-born archaeologist who had worked in Europe, French Indochina and for US intelligence services, worke…
[Later Prehistoric Cultures of Island and Mainland Southeast Asia] the Late Prehistory of Mainland Southeast Asia
The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di
Reviewed by: The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di: A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand. Volume VII: Summary and Conclusions Anna Källén The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di: A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand. Volume VII: Summary and Conclusions. C.F.W. Higham and R. Thosarat, with contributions by B.F.J. Manly and R. A. Bentley. London: Society of Antiquaries, 2004. (Distributed by Oxbow Books.) The long-awaited seventh and last report volume fro…
Perry Johansson
Perry Johanssons bok Sinofilerna publicerades redan 2008 och borde kanske ha passerat bäst-före-datum som föremål för en recension. Men så är det inte i det här fallet. Jag läste boken redan när den var ny och slogs då av hur ovanlig den var i sin genre i Sverige. Bara några enstaka försök hade då gjorts att använda den internationellt etablerade postkoloniala teorin som inspiration till svensk forskning om museer och ämneshistoria. Jag upplevde …
Archaeogenetics in Popular Media
If most academic debates surrounding the recent boom of ancient DNA (aDNA) so far have concerned conflicting research epistemologies, this article is a call for taking aspects of media and communication more seriously. Analyzing the fates of two recent research papers on Viking Age Scandinavia, we show how aDNA research is communicated, narrated and infused with meaning in the public sphere, particularly in relation to popular narratives and poli…
Petrous Fever
This article explores how the competitive quest for bone samples used in genomic analyses of ancient DNA (aDNA) creates a pressing concern for anthropological research. It investigates the premises and effects of this phenomenon-a global hunt for petrous bones as treasured sources of DNA resembling a gold fever-from the situated perspectives of archaeologists and curators of ancient human remains. We present findings from an anonymous questionnai…
Introduction
The invisible archaeologist
Drawing on 81 original letters written by an executive member of staff at UNESCO's Secretariat 1946-1947, this article aims to deneutralize the work of individual scholars and intellectuals in the officially neutral and invisible Secretariat, and situate the foundational work of UNESCO in the reality of post-war Paris. Olov R. T. Janse, a Swedish-born archaeologist who had worked in Europe, French Indochina and for US intelligence services, worke…
A Plea for Critique
Perry Johansson
Perry Johanssons bok Sinofilerna publicerades redan 2008 och borde kanske ha passerat bäst-före-datum som föremål för en recension. Men så är det inte i det här fallet. Jag läste boken redan när den var ny och slogs då av hur ovanlig den var i sin genre i Sverige. Bara några enstaka försök hade då gjorts att använda den internationellt etablerade postkoloniala teorin som inspiration till svensk forskning om museer och ämneshistoria. Jag upplevde …
The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di
Reviewed by: The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di: A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand. Volume VII: Summary and Conclusions Anna Källén The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di: A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand. Volume VII: Summary and Conclusions. C.F.W. Higham and R. Thosarat, with contributions by B.F.J. Manly and R. A. Bentley. London: Society of Antiquaries, 2004. (Distributed by Oxbow Books.) The long-awaited seventh and last report volume fro…
[Later Prehistoric Cultures of Island and Mainland Southeast Asia] the Late Prehistory of Mainland Southeast Asia
Translated Objects
This article explores the movements of archaeological and ethnographic objects and museum collections connected with the Swedish-born archaeologist and ethnographer Olov R. T. Janse (1892–1985). Janse pursued a cosmopolitan career in the years between 1920 and 1960, in and between the national contexts of Sweden, France, Indochina, the Philippines, and the United States, where he found himself in different political contexts such as colonialism, …
The invisible archaeologist
Drawing on 81 original letters written by an executive member of staff at UNESCO's Secretariat 1946-1947, this article aims to deneutralize the work of individual scholars and intellectuals in the officially neutral and invisible Secretariat, and situate the foundational work of UNESCO in the reality of post-war Paris. Olov R. T. Janse, a Swedish-born archaeologist who had worked in Europe, French Indochina and for US intelligence services, worke…
Postcolonial Theory and Sami Archaeology--A Commentary
Protecting Siam's heritage
Before I accepted the proposal to review this book, I wrote to the review editor to make sure that it would be fine to write something rather critical about it. Judging from the title, cover photo
Archaeogenetics in Popular Media
If most academic debates surrounding the recent boom of ancient DNA (aDNA) so far have concerned conflicting research epistemologies, this article is a call for taking aspects of media and communication more seriously. Analyzing the fates of two recent research papers on Viking Age Scandinavia, we show how aDNA research is communicated, narrated and infused with meaning in the public sphere, particularly in relation to popular narratives and poli…
Laos
I am a Viking! DNA, popular culture and the construction of geneticized identity
In this article, we analyze how genetic genealogy reshapes popular notions of historical identity, as it facilitates a genetically informed understanding of ethnicity and ancestry. Drawing on interviews with Swedish, British and American individuals who have employed genetic ancestry tests (GATs) to prove ancestral connections to Vikings, we explore how the desire to “be a Viking” is articulated through a convergence of pre-existing discourses ar…
Creolised Swedish Archaeology
This is on one level a story of a meeting between Swedish archaeologists, Laotian archaeologists and villagers in the Ban Nabong village in central Laos. It is also about the structurcs of Swedish archaeology, as revealed in this meeting with alternative views of the past and its material remains. Two central concepts: eaolisatinn and crenlisnrion, are derived from the so-called post-colonial theory to serve as models for describing different att…
A Hobbling Marriage
In the late 19th century, the new Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm was a cutting-edge institution for the presentation of ideas of a universal human development from primitive to modern —ideas that were at the heart of the European colonial project. We argue that the archaeological collections with their unaltered 19th-century structures still represent a narrative that reproduces a colonial understanding of the world, a linear arrange…
A Plea for Critique
Introduction
Petrous Fever
This article explores how the competitive quest for bone samples used in genomic analyses of ancient DNA (aDNA) creates a pressing concern for anthropological research. It investigates the premises and effects of this phenomenon-a global hunt for petrous bones as treasured sources of DNA resembling a gold fever-from the situated perspectives of archaeologists and curators of ancient human remains. We present findings from an anonymous questionnai…
Reply to Menéndez et al
Engaging with palaeogenomics beyond the lab
As ancient DNA (aDNA) science enters a new phase of computational and institutional power, what should social scientists and humanities scholars focus on? This article identifies questions that examine the relationships between scientists, research participants, communities and publics, and how these groups engage with, appropriate or resist palaeogenomic accounts of the past. We outline four areas for research: the social relations underlying da…
History (10 works) · Archaeology (8 works) · History (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Law (5 works)