Agency in Archaeology

by Marcia-Anne Dobres, John Robb

Overview

Agency in Archaeology is the first critical volume to scrutinise the concept of agency and to examine in-depth its potential to inform our understanding of the past. Theories of agency recognise that human beings make choices, hold intentions and take action. This offers archaeologists scope to move beyond looking at broad structural or environmental change and instead to consider the individual and the group
Agency in Archaeology brings together nineteen internationally renowned scholars who have very different, and often conflicting, stances on the meaning and use of agency theory to archaeology. The volume is composed of five theoretically-based discussions and nine case studies, drawing on regions from North America and Mesoamerica to Western and central Europe, and ranging in subject from the late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers to the restructuring of gender relations in the north-eastern US.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781317959397
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/11/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Marcia-Anne Dobres is a Research Associate at the Archaeological Research Facility, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley John Robb, a lecturer at the Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton

Table of Contents

1: Editors' introduction; 1: Agency in archaeology; 2: Thinking agency; 2: Agency and individuals in long-term processes; 3: Troubled travels in agency and feminism; 4: Agency in (spite of) material culture; 5: Rationality and contexts in agency theory; 6: A thesis on agency; 3: Using agency; 7: The founding of Monte Albán; 8: Towards a better explanation of hereditary inequality; 9: The tragedy of the commoners; 10: The depositional history of ritual and power; 11: Agents of change in hunter-gatherer technology; 12: Tension at funerals; 13: Constellations of knowledge; 14: Self-made men and the staging of agency; 15: Craft to wage labor; 4: Commentary; 16: On the archaeology of choice; 5: Epilogue; 17: Ethics and ontology

Editorial Reviews

'This book contains valuable discussions of regional archaeological records.' - Bruno David, Monash University, Australia

From the Publisher