Draft:Anna Källén

Anna Källén (born November, 18, 1973) is a Swedish archaeologist and critical heritage theorist. She is currently Professor and Chair of Museology at the Department of Culture and Media Studies at Umeå University. Previously affiliated to Stockholm University, Källén has published a number of works in the fields of archaeology, cultural history and cultural studies. More recently, Källén has undertaken critical studies of the social, cultural and political underpinnings of ancient DNA research.

Academic career
As a student of archaeology, Källén began working in Southeast Asia in the mid-1990s. Her 2004 dissertation from Uppsala University was based on archaeological excavations in the site Lao Pako in Laos. Källén's work in Laos and other Southeast Asian countries drew her towards questions about the uses and appropriations of archaeological heritage in contemporary societies. After completing her PhD, Källén moved to Stockholm University, where she pursued postdoctoral research in critical heritage studies. In 2023, Källén was appointed Professor and Chair of Museology at Umeå University.

Research
Källén's research is located at the intersections of archaeology, cultural studies and critical heritage studies. Identifying with post-processual archaeology, she challenges the idea of archaeology as an "objective" science and instead stresses the historical contingency of archaeological knowledge production.

In books like Stones Standing: Archaeology, Colonialism and Ecotourism in Northern Laos (2015) and articles like "Hintang and the Dilemma of Benevolence" (2012), Källén explores the relations between heritage, colonialism and hegemonic power. She is particularly interested in how lingering social and political structures from 19th and early-20th century European imperialism continue to inform present-day heritage practices, often reproducing colonialist and orientalist notions of time, history and race. Theoretically, Källén is inspired by postcolonial theory as well as feminist scholars like Donna Haraway.

In The Archaeologist In-Between: Olov Janse 1892–1985 (2021), Källén and archaeologist Johan Hegardt investigates the life and work of Olov Janse, a Swedish archaeologist whose collections from excavations in French Indochina during the 1930s have long been displayed at Östasiatiska muséet in Stockholm.

From 2018 onwards, Källén has pursued critical research about the field of ancient DNA studies. In the international project "Code Narrative History: Making Sense of Ancient DNA in Contemporary Society", Källén and her research team scrutinize how archaeogeneticists turn DNA strings into large-scale historical narratives by drawing on prevailing cultural and political discourses. As Källén and historian of ideas Daniel Strand suggest in their introduction to the volume Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA (2024), DNA does not offer a source of objective truth about the past. Questioning the positivist notion of DNA as a "passive artifact of the past, just waiting to be uncovered by cutting-edge scientists", they argue that scientists must use socially constructed names, labels, categories and narratives to create and communicate meaningful stories.

Books
And Through Flows the River: Archaeology and the Pasts of Lao Pako (PhD dissertation), 2004. Uppsala: Uppsala University.

Stones Standing: Archaeology, Colonialism and Ecotourism in Northern Laos. UCL Critical Heritage Studies Series, 2015. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Anna Källén and Johan Hegardt, The Archaeologist In-Between: Olov Janse 1892–1985, 2021. Stockholm: Kriterium & Makadam.

The Trouble with Ancient DNA: Telling Stories of the Past with Genomic Science, 2025. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Edited books
Anna Källén and Inga Sanner, Making Cultural History: Essays from the Research School of Studies in Cultural History, 2013. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.

Heritage and Borders, 2019. Stockholm: Vitterhetsakademien.

John Björkman, Victoria Fareld and Anna Källén, Eros, philia, agape – kärlekens kulturhistoria: En vänbok till Inga Sanner, 2020. Lund: Ellerströms.

Daniel Strand, Anna Källén and Charlotte Mulcare, Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA, 2024. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Book chapters
Anna Källén and Johan Hegardt, "Being through the past: Reflections on Swedish archaeology and heritage management". In Comparative Archaeologies: A Sociological View of the Science of the Past, edited by Ludomir Lozny, 2011. New York: Springer Press.

"Hintang and the Dilemma of Benevolence". In Appropriating the Past: Philosophical Perspectives on the Practice of Archaeology II, edited by Geoffrey Scarre and Robin Coningham, 2012. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"Laos: Cultural Heritage Management". In Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology, edited by Claire Smith, 2013. Springer Press: New York.

"Hintang and the Double-Bind Promise of Development". In Museums, Heritage, and International Development, edited by Paul Basu and Wayne Modest, 2015. Routledge Studies in Culture and Development Series. London: Routledge.

Anna Källén and Johan Hegardt, "Arkeologen och avståndet". In Tidens landskap: En vänbok till Anders Andrén, edited by Cecilia Ljung et al., 2019. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.

"Kulturarv och gränser". In Yearbook of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, edited by Ulrika Gustafsson, 2021, Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien.

"Hintang: Article in conversation with art work by Tanatchai Bandasak". In ''Climates. Habitats. Environments'', edited by Ute Meta Bauer, 2022. Singapore: The MIT Press & NTU Centre for Contemporary Art.

"The Sigtuna Debacle: A story of ancient DNA, immigrants, and fake news in a Viking Age town in Sweden". In Polarized Pasts: Heritage and Belonging in Times of Political Polarization, edited by Elisabeth Niklasson, 2023. New York/Oxford, Berghahn Books.

Articles (selected)
"The Invisible Archaeologist: Letters from the UNESCO secretariat 1946–1947". Journal of Social Archaeology, 14:3, 2014.

Johan Hegardt and Anna Källén, "Translated Objects: The Olov Janse Case". Museum Worlds, 2, 2014.

"Postcolonial Theory and Sámi Archaeology: A Commentary". Arctic Anthropology, 52:2, 2015.

Daniel Strand and Anna Källén, "I am a Viking! DNA, Popular Culture and the Construction of Geneticized Identity". New Genetics and Society, 40:4, 2021.

Anna Källén, Charlotte Mulcare, Andreas Nyblom and Daniel Strand, "Introduction: Transcending the aDNA Revolution". Journal of Social Archaeology, 21:2, 2021.