Constellations of knowledge

Human agency and material affordance in lithic technology

Bibliographic Data

ID20053540
AuthorsAnthony Sinclair (0000-0002-7498-8379, corresponding author)
Year2014
Pages212-228
Publication date2014-06-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueAgency in Archaeology (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9781315866000-24
OpenAlexW3133353311
ISBN9781315866000
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited1

In recent years the conceptual and real link between technology and social action has been coherently drawn. Many authors have already noted that technology is not simply a body of explicitly formulated and objectively described knowledge (Dobres 1995; Dobres and Hoffman 1994; Edmonds 1995; Ingold 1990; Pfaffenberger 1988; Schmidt 1997; Sigaut 1994; Spector 1991, among many others). It is a suite of technical gestures and knowledge that is learned and expressed by individuals in the course of social practices. Technology is one of the social processes by which individuals negotiate and define their identities, in terms of gender, age, belief, class, and so on. Sometimes these actions may be explicitly formulated; more often than not they are habitual and tacit. In its very essence, therefore, technical action parallels social action, and should be understood as social agency

Affordance · Agency (philosophy) · Archaeology · Constellation · Epistemology · Geography · Human–computer interaction · Lithic technology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Computer Science · Philosophy

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