Keeping things at arm's length: a genealogy of asymmetry

Abstract

This paper discusses why things have become marginalized in the social sciences and addresses some major intellectual traditions considered the main suspects for this deportation. It also explores what is claimed to be a crucial link between those very philosophies and central approaches in recent material culture studies. The paradoxical outcome of this effective history is that the ontology responsible for the displacement of things also to a large extent grounds the programs of repatriation.

Keywords:

• Things
• phenomenology
• ontology
• embodiment
• anthropology
• symmetrical archaeology

Acknowledgement

I thank Elin Svenneby, Tim Webmoor and Chris Witmore for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1 Miller uses this term very liberally and Bruno Latour seems to be a key representative of this category of abstracted thinkers despite his numerous works on scientific practice.