What drives archaeology? Is it new empirical discoveries, new methods or new theory? These factors combined are the fuel of the discipline, is the obvious answer. However, debates and research ...articles frequently reveal how a perceived need for novelty, originality and impact tends to disentangle this triumvirate of archaeological virtues, giving precedence to one asset over others as the supposed driving force. Focusing on archaeological theory, this article taps into current discussions of the nature of archaeological change, reviewing debates on the formation of archaeological theory, its legitimisation and usefulness. Specifically, I address a recent claim that archaeological theory too readily undermines itself by adopting immature ideas and concepts from other disciplines in an uncritical pursuit of novelty. Finally, I discuss how archaeology may contribute more generally to the formation of theory in the humanities by returning so-called borrowed theory.
Reimagining the national map Rossetto, Tania; Lo Presti, Laura
Dialogues in human geography,
03/2022, Letnik:
12, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The map of the nation may be considered a power tool that persists in reproducing exclusive forms of nationalism in response to migration crises. Yet, in this article, we argue that in an era marked ...by new, rampant rhetoric regarding nationalism, maps are surprisingly among the few spaces left to cultivate progressive imaginaries of cultural diversity and migration as intrinsic, positive features of national experiences. Discussing critical readings of national mappings, we encourage a dialogue between map studies and nation and nationalism studies through the lens of everyday cartographic nationhood. Taking Italy as a context of analysis, the paper considers subject-centred refabrications of national maps (IncarNations), alien phenomenologies of national cartographic objects (AlieNations), and transformative creative cartographies of migrant nations (ContamiNations) to promote an alternative understanding of the national map as a sensitive tool of pluralism in multicultural societies.
This article investigates the analogy of the “laws of nature” through Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and Gilbert Simondon’s ontogenetic naturalism (ON). Both thinkers challenge the ...literalist interpretation of scientific knowledge by emphasizing the indirect nature of relation and the primacy of the autonomy of discrete beings over pre-established physical laws. Harman’s OOO defends this autonomy as the irreducible independence of objects from their relations, while Simondon focuses on the modulation of information in shaping the laws of nature through individuation. The article argues that while science remains the best recursive triangulation between logic and empirical evidence, its grasp of an ultimate, literal Truth is constricted by an epistemological relation to autonomous realities, grounded in analogy. Consequently, the laws of nature are considered as legislated by discrete autonomies, with space and time emerging from the things themselves. The article concludes by discussing the consequences of this reframing in light of the ancient conception of díkēkosmos (cosmic justice).
This paper explores US Department of Homeland Security surveillance programs in the United States/Mexico borderlands, with an emphasis on the quotidian role of a dynamic more-than-human landscape in ...frustrating the department’s enforcement practices and ambitions. The paper is based on several years’ ethnographic research in southern Arizona, archival research, and semi-structured interviews with current and former government personnel. By unpacking the quotidian challenges confronted by Homeland Security personnel, the paper contributes to a post-humanist theory of terrain, shifting the focus of geographic inquiry to the ways that the qualities of certain spaces, objects, and conditions may resist or impede everyday navigation, centralized vision or administrative practice. Yet, as the long saga of Department of Homeland Security surveillance initiatives would suggest, the impediments of terrain are by no means final or determinant. To think through this indeterminacy and its implications for the geographic composition of state practice, the paper proposes that the latter be approached “metabolically,” with state security and surveillance practices continuously animated by a dynamic exterior as agents and agencies seek to overcome tactical and strategic limitations by incorporating, digesting and subjecting ever-greater kinds and volumes of objects, bodies, landscapes, and data to centralized legibility and control.
This article responds to green criminology. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the coal-producing region of Appalachia and the processes of mountaintop removal mining, the article engages ...contemporary philosophy, ecocriticism, and “dark ecology” to suggest that green criminology rethink its linguistic categories and epistemological assumptions. The article employs an analysis of some examples of horror cinema to suggest criminological engagement with “ecologies of horror” and the “horrors of ecology” that condition life in the shadow of harmful modes of resource extraction. It concludes with some thoughts on the potential of a “dark” green and green-cultural criminology.
This essay aims to explore the impact of Object-Oriented Ontology (O.O.O) within the realm of pedagogy, critically examining its departure from humanistic and traditional paradigms. Simultaneously, ...it presents an alternative perspective on education that decenters the human as an inevitable ground. In a contrasting move, attention is directed towards Bruno Latour and Graham Harman, elucidating key facets of their ideas. This shift also signifies a departure from the conventional realm of “critical pedagogy”, as championed by Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire. However, it is crucial to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions and significance of Freire’s work. This essay adopts a left-wing stance, with no intention of launching moral attacks on Paulo Freire, as is sometimes witnessed when reactionaries and conservatives enter the academic arena. Criticisms within these pages focus on the content of Freire’s writings, tracing the trajectory from his seminal work, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, published in 1968, to his final piece, “Pedagogy of Autonomy” written in 1996. The aim is not to exhaust all arguments put forth by Freire but to engage with select ideas, since his oeuvre is extremely complex and full of different layers. It is essential to clarify that the critique presented here does not target the character of Paulo Freire but rather delves into some of the theoretical references behind the scenes, particularly the anthropocentrism associated with his ideas. Consequently, this essay emerges as an interdisciplinary endeavor, a conjunction between philosophy and social theory. What doors will this discussion open? What new field of possibilities awaits us? I invite you to dive into this debate, exploring the potential for an Object-Oriented Pedagogy (O.O.P) on the horizon.
Magical objects are legion in Harry Potter. Among them, wands are the most magical and the most taken for granted. Wands are usually seen as tools, but no tool is only a tool. Speculative Realisms ...provide the means to look past the mere usefulness of wands and explore their nature via a flattened ontology. Recognizing that wands are not passive screens but ontologically equal to all other objects, including humans, bypasses the problems of Kantian epistemology and gives wands room to be what they are qua themselves. Focusing on ontology rather than epistemology enables wands to reveal their power, supplies a framework for studying the natures of nonfictional objects, and – ironically – allows for a more categorical application of Kant’s ethical imperative.
There have been several criticisms of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) from the political Left. Perhaps the most frequent one has been that OOO’s aspiration to speak of objects apart from all their ...relations runs afoul of Marx’s critique of “commodity fetishism.” The main purpose of this article is to show that even a cursory reading of the sections on commodity in Marx’s Capital does not support such an accusation. For Marx, the sphere of entities that are not commodities is actually quite wide, including all the beings of nature not subject to exchange, as well as bartered goods, and tithes and rents paid in kind to feudal lords. In short, the theory of commodity fetishism is a theory of v a l u e, not an anti-realist theory of b e i n g, and thus does not touch on OOO at all. In closing, I make some brief comments on Marx’s relation to Kantian formalism and to Heidegger’s famous account of present-at-hand (vorhanden) and ready-to-hand (zuhanden).
This essay engages with recent work in Object‐Oriented Ontology, beginning with Alexander Galloway's claims that object‐oriented thought is inherently neoliberal. While I agree with Galloway's ...critique, his discussion demonstrates some shortcomings of ontological thinking in contemporary media and cultural studies. Building on my response to Galloway, I argue that the problems of object‐oriented thought have less to do with its dismissal of politics than with its problematic conception of objects themselves. In their strict avoidance of “the social,” object‐oriented thinkers ignore fundamentally important features of objects in general and media objects in particular. I conclude with suggestions toward an onto‐materialist theory of objects, which seeks to understand how political economic and other broadly social matter are ontologized in objects.
In this paper I make a case for a philosophy of continuous matter, in dialogue with object-oriented ontology. A continuous-matter philosophy is one that focuses not on the identity, properties, and ...relations of discrete, countable objects, but on the nature of extended substances, both in relation to human experience and in terms of their own “inner life.” I explore why and under what conditions humans might perceive the world as objects or as continuous substances, and the language that humans use for talking about both. I argue that approaching the world as continua requires the foregrounding of concepts that emphasize the immanent (internal to a region of space), the inclusive (with contrasting properties coexisting in the same substance), the gradual (manifesting differentially at different points), and the generative or virtual (involving the constant production of form and new gradients). I suggest that starting philosophy from continuous matter rather than objects also has wider implications for speculative thought
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