Symmetrical archaeology: Two clarifications
Things are in the limelight. Fresh in the wake of TAG US where the plenary session was focused on the Future of Things, two announcements came through the CHAT (Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory) listserv this past week for thing-oriented conferences/sessions. CHAT 2009 and What's the 'Matter' in Anthropology, both set in Oxford, are taking up the call for things. This is a refreshing state of affairs.
The call to take things seriously has been an important agenda at the heart of what has been called a symmetrical archaeology (González-Ruibal 2007; Olsen 2007; Shanks 2007; Webmoor 2007; Witmore 2007).
Symmetry is an awkward term. It is part of an admittedly poor, but necessary, vocabulary meant to help us move from a very problematic rendering of reality to a hopefully more refreshing and interesting one. The "symmetrical" is simply meant to remind us not to assume the nature of relations between, for example, boundary cairns, arbitration inscriptions, and the governance of Greek poleis by imposing an asymmetric scheme based upon a discord between intentional social players and objective matter.
This is not to say asymmetries don’t exist. There are after all winners and losers throughout history. It is simply to say the asymmetries are not to be oriented along any preformed opposition between humans and nonhumans. This move requires hard work, much of which is yet to be accomplished. Here, it is important to note that significant work is already occurring in many areas across archaeology (see, for example, the contributions to Edgeworth 2006; Jorge and Thomas 2007; Knappett and Malafouris 2008).
As to be expected, many quibbles have been raised with the “symmetrical” agenda. I would like us to address two of these here: 1) the question of disciplinary commitment with respect to theory and; 2) reactions to the rhetorical subtext “the discipline of things”. These cavils were raised at TAG US and in one of the many interesting abstracts from the upcoming Centenary Conference of the Oxford University Anthropological Society, What's the 'Matter' in Anthropology; both criticisms rest upon some basic misunderstandings.
Continue reading "Symmetrical archaeology: Two clarifications" »
