A taphonomy of a dark Anthropocene. A response to Þóra Pétursdóttir's OOO-inspired ‘Archaeology and Anthropocene’

Abstract

AbstractÞóra Pétursdóttir raises the point that archaeology is limited regarding what it can achieve, including the challenges posed by the Anthropocene, by a series of theoretical assumptions. She challenges the ‘traditional’ archaeological ‘key tropes’ in matters of this new epoch, namely the concepts of culture history, deep time/distant pasts, and the nature–culture divide. Instead, she proposes a number of new guiding points to orient archaeological inquiries, framed as part of the object-oriented ontological (OOO) philosophies. In reply, I claim that the use of OOO theories is rather unhelpful for addressing the topic of the Anthropocene, given that they lead to important ethical and political consequences: a fetishization of things, an abandoning of responsibility and an alienation of humans. They are also based on the confusion that analytical distinctions are in some way the ones responsible for the existence of inequalities, ecological destruction, racism or discrimination. Paradoxically, precisely through their annihilation, there is no room left for acknowledging the alterity of the past.

Pre-critical archaeology. Speculative realism and symmetrical archaeology

“…The question of object agency often emerges in critiques of Symmetrical Archaeology (Arwill-Nordbladh 2012; Barrett 2021;Ion 2018;Preucel 2016). Whilst symmetrical archaeologists are critical of anthropomorphic forms of object agency (Olsen and Witmore 2021, 75), they do not relinquish the idea entirely, instead preferring a 'pruned' version of agency, a type that is transfigured via context (Pétursdóttir and Olsen 2018, 112, 113; see also Sørensen 2018, 96).…”

“…My criticism focuses on the articulation of the philosophical underpinnings of second-wave Symmetrical Archaeology. Bjørnar Olsen et al, for example, acknowledge that anti-realist philosophies are 'ill-equipped to deal with the world today' (Olsen et al 2012, 12; see also Olsen and Witmore 2015, 189) but fail to explain a new metaphysics to the reader, and I suspect this is why Symmetrical Archaeologists are often faced with the furrowed brow of the critic (Barrett 2014;Govier and Steel 2021;Hodder 2014, 27;Ingold 2014;Ion 2018;McGuire 2021;Van Dyke 2021). Archaeologist Þóra Pétursdóttir 2 , for example, tells us that Bryant's (2014) 'onto-cartography' is meta-ethical and meta-political; that this philosophy offers space for 'more-than-human perspectives'; that objects can have relations beyond human engagement; and that, if we fail to realize these points, we inaccurately '[claim] reality and the cosmos as a predominately human settlement' (Pétursdóttir 2017, 185).…”

On Time and Other Things: Some Cartesian Dichotomies in Antarctica

“…When considering decolonial standpoints, theories are very much territorial and contextual, and the places in which they were created have real political consequences, taking into account differences in economic, political and academic power (Mignolo 2002). Ion (2018) brings very similar evaluations of that same paper, concluding that object-oriented ontological philosophies can lead to important negative ethical and political consequences, such as the alienation of human responsibility. Furthermore, returning to the basis of the dichotomy between culture and nature, the idea of things-in-themselves (Olsen 2003) as something other to all humanistic aspects and intentions, is ultimately based on dividing human and non-human, and actually reinforces the culture versus nature dichotomy.…”

New Digs: Networks, Assemblages, and the Dissolution of Binary Categories in Anthropological Archaeology

“…Other archaeologists contend that the major problem with the Anthropocene designation is that it obscures how the current planetary environment consists of monstrous entanglements of people and things—“hyperobjects” such as the Great Pacific garbage patch that are beyond human design or control (Pétursdóttir ; see also Haraway ; Morton ; cf. Ion ).…”