ISBN:
9780387747118
Language:
English
Pages:
Online-Ressource (digital)
Series Statement:
SpringerLink
Series Statement:
Bücher
Parallel Title:
Buchausg. u.d.T. Material agency
Keywords:
Social sciences
;
Humanities
;
Anthropology
;
Archaeology
;
Social Sciences
;
Humanities
;
Anthropology
;
Archaeology
;
Aufsatzsammlung
;
Archäologie
;
Sache
;
Wirkung
Abstract:
Thus far an 'agent' in the social sciences has always meant someone whose actions bring about change. In this volume, the editors challenge this position and examine the possibility that agency is not a solely human property. Instead, this collection of archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists and other social scientists explores the symbiotic relationships between humans and material entities (a key opening a door, a speed bump raising a car) as they engage with one another.
Abstract:
Agency is a key theme that cross-cuts a wide raft of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and beyond, yet it is invariably discussed separately behind closed disciplinary doors. Within archaeology, agency has been characterized as a uniquely human attribute, and a means of incorporating individual intentionality into theoretical discourse. In other domains, however, notions of non-human and material agency have been finding currency, and it is our aim to introduce some of these themes into archaeology and develop a non-anthropocentric approach to agency. It is anticipated that such a perspective will not only help us achieve more convincing interpretations of the past, giving a more active role to material culture, but also throw new light on the changing role of artifacts in the present and the future. This book is a groundbreaking attempt to address questions of non-human and material agency from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines: archaeology, anthropology, sociology, cognitive science, philosophy, and economics. The editors and authors demostrate that a distributed, relational approach to agency, incorporating both humans and artifacts, has important ramifications for how we understand material culture.
Description / Table of Contents:
Material Agency; Contents; Contributors; Material and Nonhuman Agency: An Introduction; Where Brain, Body and World Collide; Software; Wetware and Some Robots; Wideware; Implications; References; At the Potter's Wheel: An Argument for Material Agency; 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; References; Material Agency, Skills and History: Distributed Cognition and the Archaeology of Memory; 3.1 Introduction; 3.2 Exograms, History and the Cognitive Life of Things; 3.3 Early Modern Material Agency; 3.4 Skill Memory; References; The Actor-Enacted: Cumbrian Sheep in 2001; Introduction; Sheep Enacted; The Veterinary Sheep
Description / Table of Contents:
The Epidemiological SheepThe Economic Sheep; The Farming Sheep; Sheep Acting; Sheep and Vets; Sheep Un/counted; The Price of Sheep; A Flock on the Hill; What Is Done; References; Non-Human Agencies: Trees in Place and Time; Introduction; Taking Nature and Materiality Seriously; Reviewing the World: Replacing the Human; Places and Patterns as Entanglements of Flows of Forces and Materials; Three Tree-Places; Conclusion; References; Intelligent Artefacts at Home in the 21st Century; Introduction; Our Domain of Inquiry: An Archaeology of the Future; Substance in Design
Description / Table of Contents:
Fridge Surfaces and Augmented Refrigerator MagnetsSituated Messaging in The Home: Homenote; Supporting Family Awareness: The Whereabouts Clock; Media Containment: The Picture Bowl; Conclusion; References; In Context: Meaning, Materiality and Agency in the Process of Archaeological Recording; Text and Context; Critical Perspectives; Materiality and Agency; Archaeological Context; Filling In; Forming Thoughts; Forming Identity; Capturing the Moment; Meaning, Materiality and Agency; References; The Neglected Networks of Material Agency: Artefacts, Pictures and Texts; Synopsis; Trimarans and Guns
Description / Table of Contents:
Actor-Network-TheoryNeglected Networks; Material Actors: Objects and Things; Transformations: Artefact/ Image/ Text; Artefact, Picture and Text in the Aegean Bronze Age; Text and Picture; Text and Artefact; Discussion; References; Some Stimulating Solutions; Introduction; Visualising Environmental Agency; Cosmologies and Worldly Engagements; Metamorphosis, Experience and Orientation; Irish Passage Tombs; The Visual Impact of Patterns; Seeing Through Sensitive Stones; Fluid Structures; Conclusions; References; On Mediation and Material Agency in the Peircean Semeiotic; Introduction
Description / Table of Contents:
On Signification in the Peircean SemeioticThe Sign Trichotomies; Illuminating Semeiotic Mediation in Late Woodland Pottery; Conclusions; References; When ANT meets SPIDER: Social theory for arthropods; References; Agency, Networks, Past and Future; Introduction; Human History and 'Natural History'; What is New?; The Need for a New Kind of Innovation Studies; From 'Being' to 'Becoming' and from Entities to Relations; The Dynamics of Invention; Invention in Pottery Making; Innovation; Conclusion; References; Index
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
DOI:
10.1007/978-0-387-74711-8
URL:
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