I Wish You Had Created Me So That I Could Die: An Archaeology of the Plastic Bag

The Anthropology Department welcomes Dr. Pamela L. Geller, professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, to deliver her lecture, “I Wish You Had Created Me So That I Could Die: An Archaeology of the Plastic Bag.”

The plastic T-shirt bag is a ubiquitous though small thing forgotten. Its utilitarian value is predicated on the presumption of low-cost, convenience and durability. But at what price, in what kind of conditions, and for how long? Archaeological evidence marshaled highlights the multiple paradoxes of plastics. Here I track the lifecycle of this artifact, working backwards from landfill to recycling facility to archive storage room to excavation unit to factory floor. Such contextualization reveals information about typology, degradation and significance.

An archaeology of plastics also signals a paradox in the discipline. Practitioners' use of plastics takes myriad forms—bags, tarps containers. But few archaeologists call such material culture into question. Given the growing documentation of plastics' adverse effects on human and planetary health, however, continued reliance may be read as complicity.

The identification of sustainable alternatives is one possible solution, though it is one not easily realized. Perhaps, then, plastics' paradoxes nudge archaeologists to assess the unsustainability of our disciplinary ethos, especially those practices that promote endless excavation, storage and curation of archaeological materials.