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Earth flows and lively stone. What differences does ‘vibrant’ matter make?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2018

Craig N. Cipolla
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Abstract

This essay differentiates between various branches of post-human scholarship as they relate to issues of colonial inequality, social action and politics. Through their critique of human exceptionalism, through their recognition of the vibrancy of matter, and in their potential connections with politically engaged scholarship, certain lines of post-humanist thought stand to make important contributions to archaeologies of long-term and colonial Indigenous history. I argue that these qualities offer nuanced perspectives on the plural colonial past and present of New England (north-eastern North America). I explore the prospects for a selectively post-human and pragmatic archaeology in connection with recent debates over stone landscapes. This approach makes room for various stakeholder narratives, finding possible common ground in a shared human condition between stakeholders, i.e. subject to ‘earth flows and lively stone’.

Keywords

post-humanismNew Materialismpragmatismflat ontologypostcolonialismarchaeologies of colonialismNative North America

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Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , June 2018 , pp. 49 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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