Theory adrift: The matter of archaeological theorizing (original) (raw)
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Journal of Social Archaeology
At a possible transition towards a 'flat', post-human or new-materialist environment, many have suggested that archaeological theory and theorizing is changing course; turning to metaphysics; leaning towards the sciences; or, even is declared dead. Resonating with these concerns, and drawing on our fieldwork on a northern driftwood beach, this article suggests the need to rethink fundamental notions of what theory is – its morphological being – and how it behaves and takes form. Like drift matter on an Arctic shore, theories are adrift. They are not natives of any particular territory, but nomads in a mixed world. While they are themselves of certain weight and figure, it matters what things they bump into, become entangled with, and moved by. Based on this, we argue that theories come unfinished and fragile. Much like things stranding on a beach they don't simply 'add up' but can become detached, fragmented, turned and transfigured. Rather than seeing this drift as rendering them redundant and out of place, it is this nomadism and 'weakness' that sustains them and keeps them alive.
In recent times, archaeology has seen continuously growing interest from neighboring disciplines desiring to capitalize on archaeology’s experience with the evaluation of material culture. In order to be able to answer the questions now posed to our field of research, we have to be conscious of our methods and their epistemological potential. On the basis of a characterization of archaeological sources, this article focuses on four relevant fields of inquiry with regard to the archaeological analysis of an object, that is, its materiality, archaeological context, spatial distribution, meanings, and power. Moreover, I suggest that an integration of aspects of Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory will enable archaeologists to gain further insights into the complex entanglement of humans and objects in the past.
Theory holds a paradoxical position in archaeology: its symbolic prestige is restricted to academic circles, and contrasts with the poor influence it exerts upon the daily practice of archaeology. This problem relates to the lack of a solid body of doctrines, but also to the methodological blurredness and disciplinary unsteadiness of archaeology. Past ideological abuses of interpretative models, as well as the tangible materiality of the archaeological sources have often encouraged demagogic, positivist attitudes among researchers, where down-to-earth explanations become evidence that discredit the need for theory in archaeology. We use a very broad definition of “theory”, encompassing the epistemology and the historiographic analysis of archaeological research: theory deals with everything that is linked to the nature of archaeology, to its scientific approaches, and to its relationship to the past and present. Functioning as a guide to archaeological practice, theory can therefore not be the field of specialists only.
Why has there been a discussion of a ‘death of theory’ in archaeology over the past decade? In practice, this term has referred to three different phenomena: a supposed triumph of technique over inference; a perceived failure of practitioners to employ multiple competing hypotheses to archaeological evidence; and the more general belief that the whole enterprise of archaeological theory has ground to a halt. It is the third of these that is the most troubling. In this contribution, the origin of the term ‘death of theory’ is sought in literary studies, and the differences between this context and archaeology are emphasised. Our expectation that the discipline should entirely renew itself through radical rethinking every twenty years or so is questioned, and the particular circumstances of archaeology in the later twentieth century are identified as the source of this perhaps unrealistic view. Finally, it is emphasised that archaeological theory is continuing to develop, although incrementally rather than through paradigm change. The positive aspect of this is that new approaches are increasingly emerging in tandem with other disciplines, rather than by adopting already established frameworks for investigation.
Vagueness, Identity, and the Dangers of a General Metaphysics in Archaeology
Open Philosophy, 2021
Archaeology is currently bound to a series of metaphysical principles, one of which claims that reality is composed of a series of discrete objects. These discrete objects are fundamental metaphysical entities in archaeological science and posthumanist/New Materialist approaches and can be posited, assembled, counted, and consequently included in quantitative models (e.g. Big Data, Bayesian models) or network models (e.g. Actor-Network Theory). The work by Sørensen and Marila shows that archaeological reality is not that discrete, that some objects cannot be easily identified, and that perhaps reality is not always necessarily composed of discrete objects. The aim of this article is to take Sørensen and Marila's arguments to their ultimate logical consequences: most archaeological theory today operates under the illusion of a general metaphysics. This illusion dictates not only that all of reality is composed of discrete objects, but that since reality manifests in a certain way, there has to be a methodology that accurately represents that reality. A brief discussion on the notion of "conjecture," as conceived in certain historical theories, is also presented.
Metaarchaeology, 1992
Internal debates over the status and aims of archaeology-between processualists and post or anti-processualists-have been so sharply adversarial, and have generated such sharply polarized positions, that they obscure much common ground. Despite strong rhetorical opposition, in practice, all employ a range of strategies for building and assessing the empirical credibility of their claims that reveals a common commitment to some form of mitigated objectivism. To articulate what this comes to, an account is given of how archaeological data may be 'laden with theory' constructed as evidence-and yet still function as an independent constraint on interpretation.
On the nature of theoretical archaeology and archaeological theory
Archaeological dialogues, 2006
In this paper I want to make some general comments on the state of archaeological theory today. I argue that a full answer to the question 'does archaeological theory exist?' must be simultaneously 'yes' and 'no'. Yes, there is, demonstrably, a discourse called archaeological theory, with concrete structures such as individuals and schools of thought more or less substantively engaged with it; no, in that the claims for a distinctive way of thinking about the world in theoretical terms specific to archaeology, to which most or even the largest group of archaeologists would willingly or knowingly subscribe, are overstated. In particular there is a lack of correspondence between theoretical backgrounds and affiliations that are overtly cited by archaeologists, on the one hand, and, on the other, the deeper underlying assumptions and traditions that structure their work and condition its acceptance. These underlying traditions stretch from field habits to underlying paradigms or discourses. I will explore this latter point with reference to the manner in which agency theory and phenomenology have been developed in archaeology. My conclusion suggests some elements of a way forward for archaeological theory; it is striking that many of these elements have been addressed in recent issues of Archaeological dialogues.