Our take on ANT or Actor Network Theory.

Symmetrical arcaeology suspends any concern with epistemology and focuses upon how we enter into particular ontological configurations with diverse entities. In place of any modernist distribution of entities we focus on heterogeneous networks, the mangles of reality.

In this way, action is understood as entangled within a distributed and collective realm that encompasses things (refer to paper by Witmore and Shanks, 2004). With network ontologies old dualisms such as structure and agency, individual and society, and so on are bypassed in pursuing the multiple connections that encompass the human being. Indeed, as archaeologists we are attuned to cognate fields such as physical anthropology where (though still debated) the rise to modern homo sapiens began with the first tool usage. Even phylogenetically, it seems impossible to artificially extricate humans from things. In fact, it seems with the accelerating pervasiveness of technology in contemporary life that our associations with things has only become more complex.

Refer to cyborg ontology

More soon...

Return to Key Themes

Go to the symmetrical archaeology Home