A reminder about the upcoming colloquium by Andrew Martindale, this Thursday, February 15, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm in AnSo 205 (show me a map)
Archaeological Uncertainty about Causality in Agency and Structure: Translation Between Anthropological and Ts’msyeen Worlds
My work in comparing archaeological and Ts’msyeen views of history embodies an essential teleology: translation across the fronts of science/anthropology/indigeneity is valid because it is possible. In this paper, I reflect on the parallel narratives of archaeology and oral tradition that I have constructed and address two apparent contradictions.
Although archaeological data and Ts’msyeen adawx frequently conjoin, they are the product of distinct epistemological, perhaps paradigmatic, traditions whose difference, though essential to the process, is obscured and perhaps obviated by the act of conjunction. Is the generation of and comparison between archaeological and indigenous histories translative or hegemonic, and if the former, what is the nature of data in oral records? Second, both views of history are predicated on the assumption of intergenerational continuitythat some kind of structured Ts’msyeen-ness remains despite, for example, changes in fundamental categories of identity through the colonial era. Given the expectation of volatile agency in history, where does our confidence in the persistence of structure originate? What significance to we attach to similarities in materiality and behaviour when oral records make claims of cultural continuity through periods of change in the archaeological record, and vice versa? Using recent data from ongoing research in the Dundas Islands region of Ts’msyeen territory, I explore whether the philosophical anthropology of Paul Ricouer and the model of the reflexive individual suggest a synthesis of causalities between historical structure and agency.
A Forests and Oceans for the Future lecture in collaboration with the Department of Anthropology. For additional information, please contact Felice Wyndham at fwyndham@interchange.ubc.ca or 604 822 2548