Daniel Sosna | Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (original) (raw)

Books by Daniel Sosna

Thrift and Its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy, 2022

Thrift is a central concern for most people, especially in turbulent economic times. It is both a... more Thrift is a central concern for most people, especially in turbulent economic times. It is both an economic and an ethical logic of frugal living, saving and avoiding waste for long-term kin care. These logics echo the ancient ideal of household self-sufficiency, contrasting with capitalism’s wasteful present-focused growth. But thrift now exceeds domestic matters straying across scales to justify public expenditure cuts. Through a wide range of ethnographic contexts this book explores how practices and moralities of thrift are intertwined with austerity, debt, welfare, and patronage across various social and temporal scales and are constantly re-negotiated at the nexus of socio-economic, religious, and kinship ideals and praxis.

This interdisciplinary book brings together scholars who demonstrate the potential of research in... more This interdisciplinary book brings together scholars who demonstrate the potential of research into waste for understanding humans, non-humans and their inter-relations. In 12 chapters the authors cover topics ranging from the relationship between waste and identity in early agricultural settlements to the perception of contemporary nuclear waste. Although archaeological approaches dominate the contributions, there are also chapters that represent the results of anthropological and historical research. The book is structured into three main sections that explore the relationship between waste and three domains of interest: value, social differentiation, and space. Archaeologies of Waste will interest archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and other readers intrigued by the potential of things, which were left behind, to shed light on social life.

In this study the author tests three main hypotheses that focus on the institutionalization of ve... more In this study the author tests three main hypotheses that focus on the institutionalization of vertical social differences, the different strategies that might have led to the institutionalization of vertical social differences, and changes in gender relations during the transition from the Late Copper Age to the Early Bronze Age in South Moravia (Czech Republic). In the nine chapters, the first outlines the main topics of interest and the central hypotheses, outlining the general research scope and methodology. Chapter 2 presents the main conceptual and theoretical framework, describing various aspects of social differences, their change over time, and the theoretical basis for the exploration of social differences in the mortuary archaeological record. Chapter 3 provides an introduction to the geomorphology of South Moravia and an overview of the archaeological cultures in the region, giving special attention to the Late Copper Age and the Early Bronze Age. Chapter 4 builds upon the previous two chapters and presents the three main hypotheses of this study. A series of expectations for each research hypothesis is presented along with the archaeological correlates – thus providing the necessary link between theory and characteristics that can be traced in the archaeological record. In Chapter 5 the author describes the methods used to test the research hypotheses. The first section describes the procedures for data collection. The second section discusses the methods for the analysis of intra-cemetery mortuary variability including its spatial aspects and mortuary variability between the sites and time periods. Chapter 6 discusses the archaeological sites concerned, paying special attention to four main cemeteries that are analyzed in detail. Chapters 7 and 8 present the results and discussion of the analyses. Chapter 9 concludes the main findings of the study, presenting the model of changes that occurred during the transition from the Late Copper Age to the Early Bronze Age and place the results into archaeology’s wider anthropological context.

Papers by Daniel Sosna

P. O’Hare and D. Rams (eds), Circular Economies in an Unequal World: Waste, Renewal, and the Effects of Global Circularity, 2024

This chapter explores practices and ideas associated with the recirculation of landfill leachate ... more This chapter explores practices and ideas associated with the recirculation of landfill leachate at Czech landfills to understand the relationship between the circle as an abstract ideal and the circle as an economic model with its imperfections. The recirculation is understood here as a kind of circular economy because it organises matter, energy, technology, and labour using the logic of circular movement. An ethnographic immersion into the world of landfills and actors dealing with the fluid circulating there enables the author to draw attention to the ways in which seemingly separate natural processes such as water cycle entwine with a humanmade world and its technologies. The fluid nature of leachate offers a unique opportunity to trace the connections and effects across scales. A mobilization of circular movement in landfill leachate treatment cuts costs for the waste management companies but externalizes harm to the organisms who come into direct contact with this polluting fluid at the landfills and other places that become recipients of potential harm. The author argues that circular economic arrangements create opportunities for the hypertrophy of the market and functions as a time-machine that postpones the solution of waste’s toxicity. He joins the scholarship that calls for a more balanced understanding of circular economy, which represents it not only as a promise for more sustainable futures but also a powerful vehicle for the unexpected consequences of circularity.
The whole book is open access here: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350296664

The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, 2023

This chapter examines the relevance of networks in mortuary archaeology. It traces the genealogy ... more This chapter examines the relevance of networks in mortuary archaeology. It traces the genealogy of network thinking and provides a critical synthesis of the diverse ways in which successive generations of archaeologists have approached and interpreted relations when researching the mortuary archaeological record. Case studies demonstrate a range of theoretical issues and scales investigated using network concepts and methods. This chapter evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of network approaches vis-à-vis multivariate statistics and Geographic Information Systems, which represent other powerful tools for mortuary analyses. The overview of the case studies shows a high degree of diversity, given the limited use of mortuary networks. It is argued that network methods not only enable the expansion of scale but, more importantly, enable movement across scales. Finally, the chapter proposes potential future directions for the development of networks in mortuary archaeology, especially synergies between different traditions of network thinking and the integration of different kinds of data and analyses within a single project.
The whole book is here: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/55203

East European Politics and Societies, 2023

The article examines the internal dynamics and relationality of moral economies. It focuses on la... more The article examines the internal dynamics and relationality of moral economies. It focuses on labor relations to understand how people find balance between collective moral frameworks and individual everyday acts. Drawing on ethnographic research among the Czech landfill workers during the neoliberalization of the waste industry in the 2010s, the article explores two spheres of waste management: the informal scavenging of landfill workers and the management of wastewater. Salvaging things via scavenging and management of wastewater provide two arenas for analyzing the ways people reason about the good, dignity, and justice while following their own goals. Using inspirations from the scholarship on moral economy and everyday ethics, the author argues that these two theoretical directions may benefit from the respective strengths of each other's approaches: a capacity to recognize patterns of moral reasoning behind struggles for dignity in an unequal world versus an actor-oriented situational sense of ethics growing from everyday life on the ground. The article points at a scalar reshaping of moral economies and brings attention to a morality that does not reflect only direct transactions but also more imaginative relations to distant others.

Critique of Anthropology, 2023

Quantification has become a privileged form of knowing and vehicle of governance. Anthropological... more Quantification has become a privileged form of knowing and vehicle of governance. Anthropological critique has demonstrated that a view of numbers as independent carriers of meaning is untenable; instead, numbers should be conceptualized as being part of relations and temporalities, opening space for shifts in understanding. Proposing the perspective of ‘ecologies of quantification’, we acknowledge the wider notion of ecology that accommodates materiality, cognition, and experience, and acknowledges that the constituents of the relations are always in a process of becoming. We put waste management at the centre of our interest to explore the ways quantification attempts to conquer arguably one of the unruliest domains of contemporary social life. Based on our collaborative ethnographic research on the management of municipal solid waste, discarded electrical and electronic devices, and junked cars in Czechia, we point to problems emerging when numbers become stripped of their relations. Our research sheds light on experience in the process of quantification and demonstrates that there are multiple ways to know quantity.

Anthropology News, 2022

Plastic cups reveal the flourishing more-than-human forms of life associated with landfill waste

History and Anthropology, 2021

Why do certain parts of landscape become places for waste disposal? This simple question seems to... more Why do certain parts of landscape become places for waste
disposal? This simple question seems to be easy to answer given
the existence of sophisticated tools for formal modelling of a
range of environmental, economic, social, and political variables
which are supposed to minimize risk, cost, and disequity. There
are, however, more subtle factors that shape waste disposal and
its inscription in landscape. Using examples of two Czech landfills
and drawing upon my ethnographic research of wastescapes, I
examine how history, economic interests, social practices, events,
material indeterminacies, and multispecies encounters took part
in the transformation of these places into loci of ‘strangeness’.
Using a metaphor of magnetism I refocus our attention to a
capacity of strange entities such as garbage, rubble, military
waste, dead bodies, animal farms, and shooting ranges to attract
each other along a spatiotemporal continuum. I argue that
strangeness sticks to places and tends to perpetuate itself
through a series of ‘magnetic’ relations over time. This
magnetism stems from the human propensity to classify and
dispose of entities whose open-endedness is dangerous and must
be controlled through placement. While this process of
placement is often imagined as a management of absence, I
point to a dialectical relationship to the opposite category of
presence as a critical source of magnetism. Waste management,
then, becomes envisioned as part of a more general social
process that keeps the world meaningful.

Forschungsber. des Landesmus. für Vorgesch. Halle, 2019

This study presents the research on 55 chert arrowheads that come from the enclosure at Pömmelte-... more This study presents the research on 55 chert arrowheads that come from the enclosure at Pömmelte-Zackmünde. Fatigue and abrasive wear of the arrowheads were analysed using a stereoscopic microscope. To understand the nature of wear, an archery experiment with the replicas of Late Neolithic triangular arrowheads was conducted.
The analysis of the Pömmelte-Zackmünde samples identified macrofractures that affected mostly the tips of the arrowheads. Snap and step terminating bending fractures dominated. Most scars were small, falling into the interval 1–2 mm, with wide initiation and variable morphology. Striations were infrequent. Most remarkably, our results show that 24 out of 55 arrowheads display evidence of features which are traditionally considered as diagnostic of projectile impact. Polish mostly related to hafting was identified on the surface of approximately half of the samples.
Furthermore, the majority of the arrowheads bear bright spots primarily resulting from post-depositional factors. Extensive post-depositional surface modifications most likely reflect the transport of the arrowheads into the subterranean features at the site.
We offer two competing hypotheses to explain the processes which affected the arrowheads at Pömmelte-Zackmünde. The first one views shooting at the site as evidence of ritual practices associated with public display and social recognition among the warriors. The second one regards shooting as evidence of defence against violent attacks of aggressors and a possible function of the enclosure as a fortification for the community.

In: H. Meller/F. Bertemes, Mensch und Umwelt im Ringheiligtum von Pömmelte-Zackmünde, Salzlandkreis. Forschungsber. des Landesmus. für Vorgesch. Halle 10/III (Halle/Saale 2019), 175-186

Journal of Cleaner Production, 214, 319-330, 2019

Although household food waste has been scrutinized from various angles, less attention has been p... more Although household food waste has been scrutinized from various angles, less attention has been paid to rural areas viewed through the prism of everyday life. The purpose of this study is to investigate
household food wasting in rural environment in West Bohemia, Czech Republic. This case study combines waste composition analysis of household waste and ethnographic research in a village conducted
throughout 2013 and 2014. We describe the nature of waste itself, estimate its financial value using a method combining direct data from wasted packaging and retail survey, explore the differences among
the households, interpret local understanding of food, and contribute to the theoretical debates concerning thrift. Our results show low degree of wasting of edible food (7.9 kg corresponding to 13.5 EUR per capita per year) but high variation among the households. Instead of searching for a single-causal explanation we explore a complex set of factors and relationships that shape everyday food-related practices. We approach the local discard practices via the concept of thrift and argue that it should be understood as a multi-dimensional domain that includes economizing via self-denial or creative management of resources, moral discourse entangled with care or responsibility, and social relations that
shape the flows of value.

Journal of Material Culture

This article focuses on alcohol consumption among the migrant workers living in the dormitories i... more This article focuses on alcohol consumption among the migrant workers living in the dormitories in the Pilsen region, Czech Republic, to understand different notions of personhood in the changing and uncertain environment of multinational industrial companies. The authors combined garbological analysis of waste with interaction with the inhabitants of two dormitories to account for potential bias in exploring a sensitive topic such as alcohol consumption. They argue that drinking provides an arena for becoming a person embedded in social relations, acting and experiencing the world in a way that contrasts with the neoliberal emphasis on individuality and flexibility. It is a strategy that pursues stability and mutuality in uncertain times. Also, drinking helps to temporarily escape inequality and dissatisfaction with the living conditions of those who became doomed to the symbolic bottom of the social hierarchy.

Despite the large-scale expansion of Bell Beaker phenomenon, there is a tension between the norma... more Despite the large-scale expansion of Bell Beaker phenomenon, there is a tension between the normative Bell Beaker material culture categories and their local objecti-fication in the form of real artefacts. Stone projectile points provide an opportunity to evaluate how much was the general category of such a point influenced by regional and local factors. The aim of this paper is to explore shape and size variation of Central European Bell Beaker projectile points from Moravia (Czech Republic) to elucidate factors responsible for this variation. The sample consists of 194 projectile points from 54 Central European Bell Beaker sites (2500–2300/2200 BC) distributed in Morava River catchment. The size and shape of projectile points were studied by landmark-based geometric morphometrics and expressed as shape groups, which have been assessed in terms of their spatial distribution, raw material, and reuti-lization. Although several shape categories of points were identified, there is a strong degree of uniformity in the research sample. The dominant shape category (75.4 % of points) was pervasive across geographic space and was not significantly affected either by raw material or reutili-zation. A lower degree of reutilization of points is interpreted as a consequence of a non-utilitarian role of projectile points, which represented a critical component of Bell Beaker mortuary practices.

Garbage is a considerable source of information that provides us with knowledge of not only what ... more Garbage is a considerable source of information that provides us with knowledge of not only what people consume, but also of how they dispose of the things they use. This paper focuses on the use of ethnography and garbology in order to identify the specific patterns of consumption in an urban area and shed light on the relationship between humans and waste. The chosen urban area is a neighbourhood called Vinice in Pilsen. The research questions focus on food wastage and on the identification of the conduits through which things flow away from households. The research was conducted at the landfill of municipal waste where the household waste was sorted, classified and described in detail. A modified method of quartering was applied for sampling. Over 1500 pieces of garbage, weighing more than 64 kg in total, were analysed. All data was recorded into a database in the field using a tablet. In order to complete the garbological data, an ethnographic survey was carried out in this area in the form of semi-structured interviews aimed at revealing the actors’ interpretation, classification of things and of garbage, and consumption practices. Although food wasting is perceived as unethical, it has become a habitual practice of everyday life. This practice is the result of consumers’ poor estimations of food consumption and their purchase of bargain-packages, as well as food-supplying strategies. Despite the considerable amount of potentially recyclable material that was mixed with solid waste, actors consider the recycling of waste as meaningful. Other ways of getting rid of things were also recognized, reflecting both the actors’ classification of things and their effort to eliminate the discarding of still- usable objects.

Recording thousands of entries during field research poses a challenge to any field researcher. C... more Recording thousands of entries during field research poses a challenge to any field researcher. Contemporary handheld computers offer affordable solutions, which can resolve this challenge. In this paper, we test the iPad tablet computer and FileMaker Go database to conduct garbological research carried out in West Bohemia (Czech Republic). Garbological research based on the collection of data about human waste requires not only efficient tools for recording a vast number of individual garbage items on the spot but also integration of multiple analytical levels in a database. Our research was aimed at household waste to illuminate consumption patterns and mobility of humans and things in contemporary Central European settings. The iPad was used to collect textual and visual data and integrate these in a relational database. We describe our methodology and experience with this kind of technology. The iPad and FileMaker Go proved to be well suited to challenging field conditions in the landfill, data collection was efficient and reliable, the database was flexible because its basic features could be modified in the field, and one could even examine preliminary trends in the data using charts in FileMaker Go. The proposed hardware and software is less efficient for the collection of precise spatial data, preparation of accurate drawings, and for projects in remote areas without good access to an electrical grid.

The research presented is part of the “Pilsen Garbage Project”. It presents the results of resear... more The research presented is part of the “Pilsen Garbage Project”. It presents the results of research focused on household garbage in a rural area in the Pilsen region. We aim to shed light on the relationship between people and waste through the study of discarded things. Having analyzed the waste from various households, we are able to capture the habitual patterns of discarders ́ actions, as well as their way of thinking about objects that disappear out of sight. The investigation was conducted at the recycling center in Pilsen, where the collected waste was sorted, analyzed and described in detail. The data was digitized in the field using a tablet. In total we analyzed and recorded nearly 240 kg of solid and recyclable household waste belonging to the whole village. The results reveal not only that a standardized diet has been adopted throughout the community, but also a quantitatively significant consumption of alcoholic beverages. Habitual patterns are manifested not only in the shared classification of waste for recycling, but also in the appearance of discarded things. By gaining detailed information, we aspire to demonstrate that garbology can be successfully used to expand our knowledge of contemporary society.

This article demonstrates the analytical potential of graph theory for understanding mortuary pra... more This article demonstrates the analytical potential of graph theory for understanding mortuary practices in past societies. We take advantage of social network analysis software PAJEK to model
relationships among burials. The case study of the Early Bronze Age cemetery Rebeˇsovice (Czech Republic) is used to explore the potential of the network approach to explain the contrast between
the center and the periphery of the cemetery. Two hypotheses are proposed to explain this contrast: Chronological and social. The first hypothesis explains the difference between the center and
the periphery as an effect of social standing, while the latter as an effect of time. The data set includes archaeological and biological data from 72 burials. We calculate simple matching distance matrices as a measure of dissimilarity among the burials based on socially and chronologically significant variables and Euclidean matrix as a measure of spatial proximity among pairs of graves. We project the results into geographic space and compare the patterns with the expectations derived from the two research hypotheses. The evaluation of results allows us to reject both hypotheses and formulate a new model of spatial organization based on a few contemporary subsections of the cemetery used by different corporate groups. Finally, the potential of computer-aided modeling of matrices and graphs is discussed in context of other analytical techniques used for the investigation of intra-cemetery mortuary variability.

Thrift and Its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy, 2022

P. O’Hare and D. Rams (eds), Circular Economies in an Unequal World: Waste, Renewal, and the Effects of Global Circularity, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, 2023

East European Politics and Societies, 2023

Critique of Anthropology, 2023

Anthropology News, 2022

Plastic cups reveal the flourishing more-than-human forms of life associated with landfill waste

History and Anthropology, 2021

Forschungsber. des Landesmus. für Vorgesch. Halle, 2019

In: H. Meller/F. Bertemes, Mensch und Umwelt im Ringheiligtum von Pömmelte-Zackmünde, Salzlandkreis. Forschungsber. des Landesmus. für Vorgesch. Halle 10/III (Halle/Saale 2019), 175-186

Journal of Cleaner Production, 214, 319-330, 2019

Journal of Material Culture

Social Science Computer Review, 31, 3-15. , 2013

The contributions in this issue of Social Science Computer Review represent a range of computatio... more The contributions in this issue of Social Science Computer Review represent a range of computational approaches to theoretical and disciplinary specializations in anthropology that reflect on and expand the future orientation and practice of the formal and comparative agenda in the context of an increasing emphasis on complexity in anthropology as a discipline. Themes covered in this issue include kinship, funerary burials, urban legends, eye tracking, and looking at mode influences on online data collection. A common theme throughout the articles is examining the relationship between global emergent processes and structures and the local individual contributions to this emergence, and how the local and global contexts influence each other. We argue that unless complexity is addressed more overtly by leveraging computational approaches to data collection, analysis and theory building, anthropology and social science more generally face an existential challenge if they are to continue to pursue extended field research exercise, intersubjective productions, deep personal involvement, interaction with materiality, and engagement with people while generating research outcomes of relevance to the world beyond the narrow confines of specialist journals and conferences.

This paper introduces a Special Issue of the journal Anthropologie based on the papers that were ... more This paper introduces a Special Issue of the journal Anthropologie based on the papers that were presented at the conference Theory and Method in the Prehistoric Archaeology of Central Europe, which was held in 2012 in Mikulov, Czech Republic. The papers cover a wide range of theoretical and methodological themes related to prehistory of Central Europe. Themes covered in this issue include human-environmental interactions, significance of artefacts, long-term processes, and reflexivity. Despite the diverse nature of the papers, there are two common threads emerging in this Special Issue. The first one is the relationship between archaeology and other disciplines
and the second one is the tension between national archaeological traditions and internationalisation of
archaeological practise. We argue that Central Europe is well suited for the exchange of ideas related to archaeological theory and methodology because of its geography and history. It is the space where various archaeologies and archaeologists can meet, present their arguments, negotiate their theoretical positions, and produce new knowledge.

Archaeological theories and methods are communicated via language that shapes practices of differ... more Archaeological theories and methods are communicated via language that shapes practices of different archaeological communities. Some of these communities wonder about their failures to spread their ideas beyond the limits of their own intellectual territories. Since written texts are central to knowledge sharing in contemporary archaeology, they represent an ideal target for the investigation of incompatibilities that exist among archaeological communities. It is not just the substantial dimension of texts that scholars consume but also the underlying assumptions and discursive practices that have considerable impact on the acceptance and pervasiveness of scientific ideas. In this paper I present the results of critical discourse analysis of a sample of texts about prehistory from 1854 to 1954 published in the Czech archaeological journal Památky archeologické. This study allows us to trace the long development of language vis-à-vis the social world of archaeologists. Genres, styles, and discourses provide the analytical dimensions for understanding differences in thinking and writing between the community involved in creation and perpetuation of the journal and the large archaeological communities. The results indicate that discursive practices related to language play a critical role not only in dissemination of knowledge but also in formation of ideas about the nature of archaeology as a discipline.

Čtvrtý ročník konference Archeologie & Antropologie na téma Sociální marginalita v minulosti. Na ... more Čtvrtý ročník konference Archeologie & Antropologie na téma Sociální marginalita v minulosti. Na okraji společnosti tehdy a/nebo na okraji zájmu dnes? pořádalo Oddělení pravěku a antického starověku Národního muzea ve spolupráci s Katedrou archeológie Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenského v Bratislavě. Jednání proběhlo 21. listopadu 2019, prvně v nově rekonstruované historické budově Národního muzea, a zúčastnilo se ho cca 75 českých a slovenských badatelů či studentů z řad archeologů, antropologů a příbuzných oborů, kteří si vyslechli 14 příspěvků. Novinkou na konferenci byla hodinová panelová diskuze, kterou si připravili dr. M. Hladík, doc. M. Kuna, prof. J. Macháček, doc. M. Paleček a dr. D. Sosna.

Times of COVID-19, 2020

Disposable protective gear is saving us. It protects people not only in hospitals but also in ret... more Disposable protective gear is saving us. It protects
people not only in hospitals but also in retirement
homes, supermarkets, and public transportation.
Synthetic materials, cursed for poisoning the planet’s
oceans in the form of microplastics few months ago,
became unacknowledged heroes almost overnight.
For how long will their rescue aura work? It is time to
think about the consequences of global anti-Covid-
19 policies in terms of their environmental impact.
The case we want to consider is that of a face mask,
one of the emblems of the current pandemics.

Durham Anthropology Journal, 2010

This paper is a review of Gudeman's book.

Anthropologie, 2006

Review of the mortuary reader by Antonius Robben