2 - Perspectivism as a Theory

Summary

Perspectivism as an anthropological theory on a par with academic theories is the subject of Chapter 2. The implications for archaeologyn are developed through a type of ‘thought experiment’, conceived as the thoughtful access to the experience of others. This thought experiment starts from a different way of encountering things: objects, after all, may be subjects, according to perspectivism. The consequences of such an experiment for understanding and interpreting the archaeological record are played through.

The chapter provides an overview of the manifestation of perspectivism in areas beyond the Amazon and archaeological cases from various times and places of the world, which exemplify how research has used perspectivism – from understanding it as a native ontology to using only some of its principles to understand the archaeological record or applying it as an anthropological theory to interpret the past from a locally situated approach. Two methodological issues become apparent in the chapter, how to translate other ontologies into our terms and how such a thought experiment can be put into practice when interpreting the archaeological record, whether perspectivist, animist, totemic or other.