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The book presents a new conceptual framework and a set of research principles with which to study and interpret technology from a phenomenological perspective. The author is explicitly concerned with studying ancient technological practices but the general concept of technology forms the centrepiece of discussion and is defined as an explicitly social, symbolic, and embodied endeavour that simultaneously brings into being both human agents and their material world.
Dobres argues that, for ancient technologies and products to be fully understood, we need to appreciate the historically constituted ways in which social agency, technical knowledge and the gestural acts of artefact production and use were socially meaningful and, thus, politically charged.
List of contents
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.
About the author
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).
Summary
* Examines technology from a social, cultural and phenomenological perspective. * Presents a new conceptual and methodological framework for studying technology. .
