Anticipated futures? Knowing the heritage of drift matter

Abstract

What might heritage in and of the Anthropocene look like? This article ponders this question by drawing on archaeological encounters with assemblages of drift matter (seaborne debris) in Norway and Iceland. Here, drift matter manifests evidence of both the relentlessly amassing material heritage of the Anthropocene and deep legacies of local engagement with this fluctuating resource. The tensions evoked along these coastlines therefore invite explorations of some of the challenges met in the current climate, problematizing conceptions of heritage and waste, wanteds and unwanteds, salvation and loss. Surely, drift matter is today largely perceived as not belonging in these natural environs. However, are there other thing lessons to be learned from taking seriously this heritage? Avoiding an interpretation of these things as out of context and a focus merely on what has been lost, this article asks whether it is possible that the sense of ambiguity, flux and drift emitted by this material may not only challenge but also enable alternative possibilities of knowing thingsalternatives that may be of significance for a heritage in and of the Anthropocene.

Becoming an island: Making connections and places through waste mobilities

“…For example, the building of seawalls and groynes has become increasingly common on small islands in the face of the erosive force of the sea (Yarina & Takemoto, 2017). As a result, coastal regions have become intensified contact zones between land and sea, where different ecologies and technologies are entangled (Peters et al, 2018). And the beach itself, continuously appearing and disappearing with the movements of the tides or the mining of sand (Kothari & Arnall, 2020), undermines attempts to fix and solidify the edge.…”

“…And the beach itself, continuously appearing and disappearing with the movements of the tides or the mining of sand (Kothari & Arnall, 2020), undermines attempts to fix and solidify the edge. These understandings challenge us to scrutinise the landward bias in understanding territories and landscapes and instead look at surfaces and assemblages that are additional to earth terrain (Peters et al, 2018). Such a rebalancing of perspectives towards the sea is a reminder of the importance of the oceanic movements that are ever present in small-island life (Steinberg, 2001).…”

“…As outlined above, there are a number of ways in which this place-making is occurring, with different waste management systems and approaches operating concurrently. Often such interactions take place in the island's coastal zones, areas of intense ecological and technological entanglement (Peters et al, 2018). Some residents, for example, collect and remove debris from the section of beach directly in front of their homes many times a day, whereas others take it upon themselves to clear larger sections of the island.…”

La arqueología es la historia de nuestro presente. 'A propósito de El oscuro abismo del tiempo. Memoria y Arqueología', de Laurent Olivier (Jas Arqueología Editorial, 2020, 278 páginas, ISBN 978-84-16725-00-7).

“…5. Las cosas no hablan por sí solas 4 , a pesar de la insistencia de ciertas posiciones teóricas que en un principio planteaban dar respuesta al hartazgo interpretativo que produjo el posprocesualismo (Olsen, 2012;Pétursdóttir, 2019). En una publicación reciente, Olivier (2020b: 161) vuelve sobre las ideas de El oscuro abismo del tiempo para señalar de manera más persuasiva que el problema no es el tipo de significado que queramos buscar en el registro arqueológico -sea este simbólico, ideológico u ontológico -, sino la relación, más concreta, "entre los restos materiales y su significado" -vemos de nuevo una operación refleja a la planteada más arriba -.…”

Critical heritage and the posthumanities: problems and prospects

“…Fredengren 2015;Harrison 2015;DeSilvey 2017). Responding to this workas well as recent contributions from the adjacent fields of archaeology (Sørensen 2013;Boyd 2017;Pétursdóttir 2020), memory studies (Rigney 2017;Knittel and Driscoll 2017), the theory of history (Chakrabarty 2016;Domanska 2018), and anthropology (Kohn 2013;Descola 2013;Tsing 2015;Surrallés 2017)this paper asks what challenges posthumanism poses to heritage theory and practice, but also what opportunities might emerge for thinking and doing heritage otherwise if we take seriously the various methodological, epistemological and ontological claims made under this banner (e.g. Latour 1999Latour , 2013Braidotti 2013;Morton 2013;Haraway 2016;).…”