Technology and Social Agency
Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology
Social Archaeology
1. Edition April 2000
316 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN:
978-1-57718-124-8
John Wiley & Sons
The book presents a new conceptual framework and a set of research principles with which to study and interpret technology from a phenomenological perspective.
List of Figures.
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
1. Of Black Boxes and Matters Material: The State of Things.
2. Deconstructing the Black Box: Some Philosophical and
Historical Reflections on the Logos Tekhne.
3. Prying Open the Black Box: Philosophical Insights on
Technology and Being.
4. A Synoptic Approach to Technology: Conceptual Contours of a
Practice Framework.
5. Social Agency and Practice: The Heart and Soul of
Technology.
6. Engendering the Chaine Operatoire: Methodological Issues.
7. A Future for Technology's Pasts.
Notes.
References.
Index.
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
1. Of Black Boxes and Matters Material: The State of Things.
2. Deconstructing the Black Box: Some Philosophical and
Historical Reflections on the Logos Tekhne.
3. Prying Open the Black Box: Philosophical Insights on
Technology and Being.
4. A Synoptic Approach to Technology: Conceptual Contours of a
Practice Framework.
5. Social Agency and Practice: The Heart and Soul of
Technology.
6. Engendering the Chaine Operatoire: Methodological Issues.
7. A Future for Technology's Pasts.
Notes.
References.
Index.
"Technology and Social Agency is the most provocative and
significant book on the relationship between the material world and
the human condition to appear in anthropology since Leslie A.
White's The Evolution of Culture (1959). Unlike its polemic
predecessor, however, Technology and Social Agency avoids
instrumental determinism and establishes the challenging
alternative of technology as a total social fact centered around
individual human beings in meaningful communities of cultural
practice. In reaffirming the human and social dimensions of all
technological practice and technique, Marcia-Anne Dobres
establishes instead the role of material items in all social
discourse and social reproduction. As a poetic manifesto for
technology and human action Technology and Social Agency
will be a flash point of intelligent debate of these issues for the
next decade, and perhaps beyond." Professor John Edward Clark,
Brigham Young University.
"The true value of this book is that it has brought together a
wide range of previous work on technolgy. It is a well-referenced
discussion of a significant trend in technological studies, an area
of study to which Dobres herself has made a major contribution. I
hope Dobres will continue to make a significant contribution to
these debates." Bill Sillar, University College London, for
Antiquity 2003
"I found the book a thorougly researched and well-argued example
of an inter-disciplinary approach, bringing together ideas from
phenomenological philosphy,the sociology of technology and science
and from material culture debates within British and American
Anthropology ... a well informed work that is both highly
innovative and challenging." Cambridge Anthropology
significant book on the relationship between the material world and
the human condition to appear in anthropology since Leslie A.
White's The Evolution of Culture (1959). Unlike its polemic
predecessor, however, Technology and Social Agency avoids
instrumental determinism and establishes the challenging
alternative of technology as a total social fact centered around
individual human beings in meaningful communities of cultural
practice. In reaffirming the human and social dimensions of all
technological practice and technique, Marcia-Anne Dobres
establishes instead the role of material items in all social
discourse and social reproduction. As a poetic manifesto for
technology and human action Technology and Social Agency
will be a flash point of intelligent debate of these issues for the
next decade, and perhaps beyond." Professor John Edward Clark,
Brigham Young University.
"The true value of this book is that it has brought together a
wide range of previous work on technolgy. It is a well-referenced
discussion of a significant trend in technological studies, an area
of study to which Dobres herself has made a major contribution. I
hope Dobres will continue to make a significant contribution to
these debates." Bill Sillar, University College London, for
Antiquity 2003
"I found the book a thorougly researched and well-argued example
of an inter-disciplinary approach, bringing together ideas from
phenomenological philosphy,the sociology of technology and science
and from material culture debates within British and American
Anthropology ... a well informed work that is both highly
innovative and challenging." Cambridge Anthropology
Marcia-Anne Dobres received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently teaching at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on Palaeolithic and contemporary hunter-gatherers, technology, social agency, and gender, as well as prehistoric art and symbolism. She has ongoing research projects in France and South Africa. She is senior editor of The Social Dynamics of Technology: Practice, Politics, and World Views (1999) and Agency in Archaeology (ed. with Robb, 2000).