Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T20:01:44.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Comment on ‘The symmetries and asymmetries of human–thing relations. A dialogue’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2017

John C. Barrett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Gavin Lucas questions whether Ian Hodder's analysis of the ‘entanglements’ between humans and many other things necessarily assumes an inherent asymmetry. The quick answer is that it is more than likely, and we might wonder why Lucas thinks that this is a problem. The recent ‘ontological turn’ in archaeology has sought to treat the differences between all things ‘symmetrically’ and ‘without a priori subsuming them into an asymmetrical regime of radical divides’ (Olsen and Witmore 2015, 188). One such radical divide would be between living things (such as humans) and non-living things (such as hammers): it is the potential asymmetry across this divide that Lucas seems to want to avoid.

Type
Discussion
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , December 2017 , pp. 137 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bloor, D., 1991: Knowledge and social imagery (2nd edn), Chicago.Google Scholar
Ingold, T., 2016: A naturalist abroad in the museum of ontology. Philippe Descola's Beyond Nature and Culture , Anthropological forum, 26 (3), 301–20.Google Scholar
Latour, B., 2005: Reassembling the social. An introduction to actor-network theory, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen, B., and Witmore, C., 2015: Archaeology, symmetry and the ontology of things. A response to critics, Archaeological dialogues 22 (2), 187–97.Google Scholar
Schneider, E.D., and Sagan, D. 2005: Into the cool. Energy flow, thermodynamics, and life, Chicago.Google Scholar
Schrödinger, E., 1944: What is life? The physical aspects of the living cell, Cambridge.Google Scholar