Talking Past Each Other:
Practising Multivocality at Çatalhöyük

Kathryn Rountree (New Zealand)

Abstract

The high-profile Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük on the Konya Plain in central Turkey has become an increasingly contested space in recent years, its meanings circulating not only in scientific discourses, but also in many other local and global interest groups, including that of Goddess feminism.  Creating space for the voices of different interest groups has been an explicit and important feature of the methodology embraced by the current team of archaeologists, directed by Ian Hodder. The “voices” of Goddess feminists and their engagement with the archaeologists constitute the particular focus of this paper.

The article draws attention to the way in which power is articulated and negotiated in a multivocal context and asks, provocatively, a number of questions about the meaning and practice of multivocality. It discusses some of the politics around the setting up of a display from a “Goddess perspective” in the Çatalhöyük Visitor Centre. The article argues that sometimes attempts at dialogue between different groups stall because groups are “talking past each other,” apparently speaking different “languages” and employing different epistemologies and discursive practices. The paper concludes on a more positive note, describing a relatively successful attempt at dialogue between the archaeologists and Goddess visitors at Çatalhöyük in 2005.