Hammers and nails. A response to Lindstrøm and to Olsen and Witmore

Abstract

Two contrasting arguments on the merits of symmetrical archaeology and an associated discussion of object agency appeared in a recent issue of Archaeological dialogues (Lindstrøm 2015; Olsen and Witmore 2015). While Torill Christine Lindstrøm extends a thorough, yet hardly new, criticism of the notion of object agency and of symmetrical archaeology, Bjørnar Olsen and Christopher Witmore provide a clarification in its defence (even though their article is oddly categorized by Archaeological dialogues as a ‘provocation’). In this reaction article, I take issue with a number of arguments by Lindstrøm and by Olsen and Witmore: first of all, I challenge Lindstrøm's representation of object agency, which I believe is in need of corrections. Second, I contend that Lindstrøm fails to identify a number of fundamental contributions within the framework of symmetrical archaeology, thus allowing her to caricature symmetrical archaeology as ‘old wine in new bags’. Third, even though Olsen and Witmore's defence offers helpful clarifications, I believe that their contribution invites us to discuss the vocabulary of symmetrical archaeology, scrutinizing why there is an apparent tendency to misunderstand its arguments and merits. Lastly, I take issue with Lindstrøm's dismissal of ‘different ontologies’ as a result of political correctness.

Agency. A response to Sørensen and Ribeiro

“…Today, ethnographic accounts of various people's ‘ontological alterity’ (seeing objects as personalized and as active agents) are used as arguments for various theoretical practices and conceptions of ‘agency’ in objects and other non-living entities. Sørensen (2016, 125) says that such ethnographic accounts should challenge us to ‘mak[e] room for exploring how we can understand – on its own terms – that which escapes our predefined coordinates of logic, science and objectivity’. Sørensen's standpoint resembles Ingold's in ‘Rethinking the animate, re-animating thought’ (2006), where Ingold also refers to others’ conceptions of a unity of being.…”

“…Sørensen (2016, 118) writes, ‘Normally, in the ordinary use of a hammer, we do not consciously attend to the hammer in an objective way; rather, when we are absorbed in the activity of hammering, the hammer is in alignment with our bodily operation as a seamless extension of the body’. But I wonder, what if many do not experience this ‘seamless extension of the body’, but instead ‘consciously attend to the hammer in an objective way’?…”

“…To be accused of being an ‘empiricist’, ‘positivist’, ‘essentialist’ or ‘behaviourist’ can lead to ‘near-death experiences’ in certain academic circles. Sørensen (2016, 116) claims that I represent ‘a Cartesian scienticism as a solution to ontological challenges’. To this I can only say that I don't like Descartes.…”

“…One of his basic claims is that there is a profound dualism (originating with Descartes) in Western philosophy, 3 the sciences, and even our everyday way of thinking. As Sørensen (2016, 119), referring to Latour (1993), writes, ‘we continue to divide the world into artificial, impractical and deceptive binaries (human versus non-human, subject versus object, society versus nature) that are unhelpful for our way of understanding how people go about their everyday practices as well as their more fundamental conceptualizations of the world’.…”

“…My question, therefore, is whether this is really so bad. Are all binaries (and now I take elements from the Sørensen (2016, 119) quote above) ‘artificial’, ‘impractical’ and ‘deceptive’? Are they ‘unhelpful for our way of understanding how people go about their everyday practices as well as their more fundamental conceptualizations of the world’?…”