RANDALL H. MCGUIRE
Publications
My most provocative publications engage the theoretical and philosophical literature of western scholarship, in order to debate, disrupt and reconstitute the conceptual underpinnings of archaeology.  Substantive studies of the aboriginal Southwest/Northwest, American history, and the contemporary provide empirical anvils upon which I use theoretical hammers to forge new understandings of the world.  I wrote my seminal work, A Marxist Archaeology (1992), to educate myself in Hegalian Marxism. I have engaged in trans-disciplinary scholarship to develop the intersections between my radical theory and other critical, activist paradigms including feminism, post-modernism, anarchy and Indigenous theory.  The vast majority of my publications make substantive contributions to knowledge, but many also engage in a critique of the world and intellectual activism.  After doing a radical archaeology for 15 years, I wrote Archaeology as Political Action (2008). This book ponders how scholars can adapt the practice of archaeology to those who do archaeology, to those who want archaeology, and to those who archaeology affects. These reflections grew from a self-critical evaluation of my scholarship and they inform my most recent publications.  I have authored or co-authored six books, seven edited volumes, nine monographs and 140 articles.  This page lists most of my writings sorted by topic, my vitae inventories all of my publications and PDF copies of many of my works can be obtained at Academia.edu.
If anybody thinks they should listen to me because I'm a professor at MIT, that's nonsense. You should decide whether something makes sense by its content, not by the letters after the name of the person who says it.

 Noam Chomsky
Paco the Kitten and Randy Writing
Red Wedge - Theory
Theory

McGuire, Randall H.
1983  Breaking Down Cultural Complexity:  Inequality and Heterogeneity.  Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 6:91-142. GO TO  EN ESPAÑOL

McGuire, Randall H. and M. B. Schiffer
1983  A Theory of Architectural Design. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2:277-303. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H.
1992  A Marxist Archaeology. Academic Press, Orlando. (Reissued 2002 by Percheron Press) GO TO

1995  Behavioral Archaeology: Reflections of a Prodigal Son.  in Expanding Archaeology ed. by J.M. Skibo,
W.H.Walker and A.E. Nielson, pp. 162-177, University of Utah Press, Provo. GO TO

1996  The Limits of World Systems Theory for the Study of Prehistory. in Prehistoric World Systems in the
Americas. ed. by P.N. Peregrine & G. Feinman, pp. 51-64,  Prehistory Press, London. GO TO

1996  Why Complexity is Too Simple. in Debating Complexity, ed. by Daniel Meyer and Peter Dawson.
Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary.

Shanks, Michael, and Randall H. McGuire
1996  The Craft of Archaeology. American Antiquity 61(1):75-88. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H. & Rodrigo Navareete
2004  Between Motorcycles and Rifles: Anglo-American and Latin American Radical Archaeologies.  In Global Archaeological Theory. Ed by. P. Funari, A. Zarankin, and E. Stoval, pp. 309-336, Routledge, London. EN ESPAÑOL

McGuire. Randall H., LouAnn Wurst, and Marie O’Donovan
2005  Probing Praxis in Archaeology: The Last 80 Years.  Rethinking Marxism 17(3):355-372. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H.
2006 Marx, Childe, and Trigger, in The Works of Bruce G. Trigger: Considering the Contexts of His Influences, ed by Ron Williamson, pp. 61-79, McGill University Press, Montreal. GO TO

2007  Llegint I Malinterpretant V. Gordon Childe a l’America del Nord. Cota Zero: Revista D'arqueologia I
Ciència 22:32-43. GO TO (Reading & Misreading V. Gordon Childe in North America GO TO TRANSLATION)

2008 Archaeology as Political Action. University of California Press, Berkeley.

2008  Marxism in Handbook of Archaeological Theory. Ed by A. Bentley, H. Maschner &, C. Chippendale,
pp. 73-94, Alta Mira, Walnut Creek. GO TO

 2010  L’Arqueologia nord-americana al segle XXI. Cota Zero 25(87-93). GO TO (North American Archaeology in the 21st Century GO TO TRANSLATION)

Bernbeck, Reinhard  and Randall H. McGuire (editors)
2011  Ideologies in Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

McGuire, Randall H.
2012  Critical Archaeology and Praxis (Kritische Archäologie und Praxis). Forum Kritische Archäologie. GO TO.

2012  Utilizar la Arqueología Social Para Hablar al Perro. In La Arqueología Social Latinoamericana: De la Teroría a la Praxis. Ed by Henry Tantaleán and Miguel Aguílar, pp.485-501, Universidad de Las Andes, Bogotá, Columbia. GO TO  (using Social Archaeology to Make the Dog Talk GO TO TRANSLATION)

Atalay, Sonja, Lee Rains Clauss, Randall H. McGuire, and John R. Welch (Editors)
2014 Transforming Archaeology: Activist Prospects and Practices. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA.

McGuire, Randall
 2014  Reflections on the Festschrift / Memorial Volume: Review of  Human Expeditions: Inspired by Bruce
Trigger. Ed by S. Chrisomalis and A. Costopoulos, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, European Journal
of Archaeology 17(4):720-723. GO TO
        
2015 Leyendo y Malinterpretando A. V. Gordon Childe en América Del Norte. Anuario de Arqueología,
 Rosario 7:9-23.  GO TO (Reading & Misreading V. Gordon Childe in North America GO TO TRANSLATION)

2017 Teyú Cuaré: Prólogo. En Teyú Cuaré: Arqueología de un Refugio Nazi en la Argentina. By Daniel Schávelzon y
Ana Igareta. Pp. El Centro de Arqueología Urbana, Buenas Aires.

2021 A Relational Marxist Critique of Post-Humanism in Archaeology. Cambridge Archaeology Journal.31(3):495-501.
GO TO

 

Publications on Theory
Publications in Southwest/Northwest Archaeology
Hohokam Pottery Design
SOUTHWEST/NORTHWEST ARCHAEOLOGY
McGuire, Randall H.
 1977 Prehistoric Subsistence at the Kiewitt Site, Northwestern Arizona. The Kiva 43(1):49-82.

1977  The Copper Canyon ¬McGuireville Project:  Archaeological Investigations in the Middle VerdeValley, Arizona.  Contributions to Highway Salvage Archaeology in Arizona #5, Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

 1978  Papago Wells Project:  Archaeological Surveys near Kaka and Stoa Pitk, The PapagoReservation, Arizona.  Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series #120, Tucson.

1980 The Mesoamerican Connection in the Southwest.  The Kiva 46(1):3-38. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H. and Michael B. Schiffer
1982  Hohokam and Patayan:  The Prehistory of Southwestern Arizona. Academic Press, New York.

Henderson, T. K., G. E. Rice, A. V. Howard and R. H. McGuire
 1984  The Excavation of the Site La Ciudad.  Arizona State University Anthropological Field Studies #3, Tempe.

Mathien, F. J. and R. H. McGuire (editors)
1986  Ripples in the Chichimec Sea:  New Considerations of Southwestern Mesoamerican Interactions.Southern Illinois Univ. Press, Carbondale.

McGuire, Randall H. and Ann Valdo Howard
1987  The Structure and Organization of Hohokam Shell Exchange.  The Kiva 51(2):113 146.

Ackerly Neal, Jerry Howard and R. H. McGuire
 1987  The La Ciudad Project Canals:  A Community Level Study of Hohokam Irrigation.  Arizona State University Anthropological Field Studies #17, Tempe.

McGuire, Randall H.
1989 The Greater Southwest as a Periphery of Mesoamerica.  In Centre and Periphery, ed. by T. C. Champion, pp. 40 61, Allen and Unwin, London. GO TO    

 1992 Death, Society, and Ideology in a Hohokam Community. Westview Press, Boulder.

 1994  Historical Process and Southwestern Prehistory: A Position Paper. in Understanding
 Complexity in the Prehistoric Southwest, ed. by G. Gumerman and M. Gellman, pp. 193-202, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

McGuire, Randall H. and Dean Saitta
1996  Although They Have Petty Captains, They Obey Them Badly: The Dialectics of PrehispanicWestern Pueblo Social Organization. American Antiquity 61(2):197-216. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H.
1997  Crossing the Border. In Prehistory of the Borderlands, Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series #186. ed. by J. Carpenter & G. Sanchez, pp. 130-137, Tucson.

Saitta, Dean and Randall H. McGuire
1998  Dialectics, Heterarchy, and Western Pueblo Social Organization.  American Antiquity 63(2):334-36. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H.
 2003  The Meanings and Limits of the Southwest/Northwest: A Perspective from Northern Mexico. In Boundaries and Territories: The Archaeology of the Southwest Northwest. Anthropological Research Papers #54. ed. by E.Villalpando & J. Carpenter, pp. 173-183, Arizona State University, Tempe. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H. and Ruth Van Dyke
 2008  Dismembering the Trope: Imagining Cannibalism in the Ancient Pueblo World. In Multi-disciplinary Approaches to Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest. Ed. By  D. Nichols& P. Crown, University of Arizona Press, Tucson. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H
2011  Rethinking Social Power and Inequality in the Aboriginal Southwest/Northwest. In Movement, Connectivity and Landscape Change in the Prehistoric Southwest. ed. by M. Nelson, pp. 57-74. University of Colorado Press, Boulder. GO TO

 2011  Mesoamérica, el Noroeste de México y el Suroeste de Estados Unidos. In Mesoamérica: Debates y Perspectivas. ed. by E. Williams, M. García Sánchez, and M. Gándara, pp.79-94, El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora. GO TO  (Mesoamerica, the Northwest of México and the Southwest of the United States) GO TO TRANSLATION)

 2011  Pueblo Religion and the Mesoamerican Connection.  In Religious Transformation in the Late Pre-
Hispanic Pueblo World. Ed. By D.M. Glowacki and S. Van Keuren, pp. 23-49, University of Arizona Press, Tucson. GO TO

Villalpando, Elisa and Randall H. McGuire (Editors)
 2014 Building Transnational Archaeologies/Construyendo Arqueologías Transnacionales. ArizonaState Museum Archaeological Series 209. Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

Publications on Colorado Coalfield War and Ludlow Massacre
Publications on Indigenous Archaeology
Publications in Historical Archaeology
Historical Archaeology Publications
Historical Archaeology

McGuire, Randall H.
1979  Rancho Punta de Agua. Contributions to Highway Salvage Archaeology in Arizona #57, Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

1982  The Study of Ethnicity in Historical Archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology1(2):159-178.

 1988  Dialogues with the Dead: Ideology and the Cemetery.  In The Recovery of Meaning in Historical  Archaeology, ed. by M. P. Leone and P. B. Potter, Jr., pp. 435-480.  Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H. and Robert Paynter (editors)
1991  The Archaeology of Inequality, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Wurst, LouAnn and Randall H. McGuire
1999  Immaculate Consumption: A Critique of the “Shop Till You Drop” School of Human Behavior. International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 3(3):191-199. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H. & LouAnn Wurst
2002  Struggling With the Past. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(2):85-94. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H.
 2006  Marxism and Capitalism in Historical Archaeology. in The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology. ed by D. Hicks & M.C. Beaudry, pp. 123-142. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

2018   Diálogos con los Muertos: Ideología y Cementerio / Dialogues with the Dead: Ideology and the Cemetery. Vestigios 12(1):123-158. (Spanish translation of McGuire 1988) GO TO

Trincheras Tradition, Sonora, México
McGuire, Randall H. and María Elisa Villalpando
          1989  Prehistory and the Making of History, Sonora.  In Columbian Consequences:  Archaeological and
          Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, ed. by D.H. Thomas, pp. 159-177,
          Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington.

          1993  An Archaeological Survey of the Altar Valley, Sonora, Mexico. Arizona State Museum
          Archaeological Series #184. Arizona State Museum, Tucson. GO TO

          1997  Cerro de Trincheras, un Sitio Arqueológico en el Noroeste de Sonora.  Arqueología 17:49-63.

          1998  Cerro de Trincheras: A Prehispanic Terraced Town in Sonora Mexico.  Archaeology in Tucson
          12(1):1-5. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H., María Elisa Villalpando, Victoria Vargas, and Emiliano Gallaga
          1999  Cerro de Trincheras and the Casas Grandes World. In The Casas Grandes World, ed by
          C.L. Riley and C.F. Schaafsma, pp. 134-146, University of Utah Press, Provo.

McGuire, Randall H. & Elisa Villalpando
          2007  Excavations at Cerro de Trincheras.  in Enduring Borderlands Traditions: Trincheras Sites
          in Time, Space, And Society. Ed. By Fish, Fish, and Villalpando, University of Arizona Press.

Villalpando, María Elisa and Randall H. McGuire
          2009  Entre Muros de Piedra. Sonoran Cultural Center, Hermosillo.

McGuire, Randall H. and María Elisa Villalpando (editors)
          2011 Excavations at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico, Arizona State Museum Archaeological
          Series #204 . Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

          2015  War and Defense on Cerros de Trincheras in Sonora, México. American Antiquity 80(3):1-22.
           GO TO
Ludlow Massacre & Colorado Coal Field War 1913-1914

McGuire, Randall H., Dean Saitta, and Phil Duke
 1998  Archaeology of the Colorado Coal Field War 1913-1914. Radical History Review 72:79-80.

The Ludlow Collective
2001  Archaeology of the Colorado Coal Field War, 1913-1914. In Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. Ed. By V. Buchli & G. Lucas, pp. 94-107, Routledge, London.

McGuire, Randall H. & Paul Reckner
2002 The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle. Historical Archaeology 36(3):44-58. GO TO

  2003  Building a Working Class Archaeology: The Colorado Coal Field War Project. Industrial Archaeology Review 25(2):83-95. GO TO

Larkin, Karin and Randall H. McGuire (editors)
2009 The Archaeology of Class War: The Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

McGuire, Randall H.
2014  Won With Blood: Archaeology and Labor's Struggle. International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 18(2):259-271.  GO TO

 2014 Working Class Archaeology. In Transforming Archaeology: Activist Prospects and Practices. Ed. By  S. Atalya, L.R. Clauss, R.H. McGuire and J. R. Welsh, pp. 115-132, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA. 

Publications on Indigenous Archaeology
Indigenous Archaeology

McGuire, Randall, H.
1988  White American Attitudes Concerning Burials.  World Archaeological Bulletin 2:40 45.

 1989  Sanctity of the Grave:  White Concepts and American Indian Burials. In Conflicts in the
Archaeology of Living Traditions, ed. by Robert Layton, pp. 167 184, Allen & Unwin, London.

 1992  Archaeology and the First Americans. American Anthropologist, 94(4):816-36. GO TO

 1994  Do the Right Thing. in Reckoning With the Dead. ed.by Tamara Bray, pp. 180-184, Smithsonian
  Institution Press, Washington, D.C. GO TO

1995  Working Together on the Border. SAA Bulletin 13(5):8-9.

 1997  Why Have Archaeologists Thought That the Real Indians are Dead and What Can We Do About It. In Indians and Anthropologists in Post-Colonial America. ed. by T. Biolsi & L. Zim merman, pp. 63-91,
 University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

2003 Why Can’t We Be Friends.  Indigenous Peoples & Archaeology: Honoring the Past, Discussing the             Present, Building for the Future. Pp. 92-101, ed. by Trevor Peck & Evelyn Siegfried, Department of
Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary.

2004  Contested Pasts: Archaeology and Native Americans. In A Companion to Social Archaeology. Ed. By L. Meskell & R. W. Preucel, pp. 374-395, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. GO TO

2017    Expiación: La Masacre de la Sierra Mazatán y la Arqueología Indígena en Sonora, México.  Anales de Arqueología Y Etnología 72(1): GO TO

La Línea  - The U.S. Mexican Border

McGuire, Randall H.
 2013 Steel Walls and Picket Fences: Rematerializing the U.S. - Mexican Border in Ambos Nogales. American Anthropologist 115(3):466-480. GO TO

 2015 Modern Material Culture and Ruins in Ambos Nogales (Arizona and Sonora). In Explorations in
Behavioral Archaeology. Ed. by W.H. Walker and J. M. Skibo, pp. 187-20, University of Utah Press, Provo. GO TO

 2015 El Muro De La Frontera Estados Unidos-México Y El Detritus De La Modernidad En Ambos Nogales 
(Arizona y Sonora). En Personas, Cosas, Relaciones Reflexiones Arqueológicas Sobre Las Materialida              Pasadas Y Presentes. Ed. By F. A. Acuto y V. F. Salvi, pp. 175-212, Ediciones Abya-Yala, Quito, Ecuador. GO TO

2017 Muros De Acero Y Cercas De Madera: Rematerializando La Frontera Entre Estados Unidos Y México
En Ambos Nogales. Revista Arkeogazte/Arkeogazte Aldizkaria 7:97-121. (Spanish translation McGuire 2013) GO TO

2018 Bearing Witness on the US-Mexico Border. American Anthropologist.120(3):541-542. GO TO

Sheridan, Thomas and Randall H. McGuire (Editors)
2019 The Border and its Bodies: The Embodiment of the Risk along the U.S.-México Line. University of Arizona Press,
Tucson.

McGuire, Randall and Ruth M. Van Dyke
2019 Crossing la Línea: Bodily Encounters with the U.S.-México Border in Ambos Nogales. In The Border and its
Bodies: The Embodiment of the Risk along the U.S.-México Line. Ed. By T. Sheridan & R. McGuire, pp. 41-70,
University of Arizona Press, Tucson. GO TO

McGuire, Randall H.
2020  Barbarians at the Gates: A History of Walls. In Walling in and Walling Out: Why are We Building New Barriers
to Divide Us Ed. By L. McAtackney & R. McGuire, pp. 23-46, SAR Press, Santa Fe. GO TO

2020 The Materiality and Heritage of Modern Forced Migration. Annual Review of Anthropology. 49:175-191.GO TO

McAtackney, Laura and Randall H. McGuire (Editors)
2020 Walling in and Walling Out: Why are We Building New Barriers to Divide Us? SAR Press, Santa Fe

 

Updated 9/1/2022