Contents
Epigraph viii
List of Figures ix
Preface and Acknowledgements for First Edition xii
Preface and Acknowledgements for Second Edition xiii
1Thinking About Things Differently (from Things to Flows) 1
What Is a Thing? 1
Things-in-Themselves? 3
Changing Definitions of Entanglement 8
From Things to Strings 12
Weaker and Stronger Entanglements 14
Conclusion - (a) Why Process Matters 15
Conclusion - (b) Are We at One with Things? 16
2 Humans Depend on Things 19
Dependence: Some Introductory Concepts 20
Forms of Dependence 21
Reflective and Non-reflective Relationships with Things 22
Going Toward and Away from Things 24
Identification and Ownership 26
Some Previous Accounts of the Human Dependence on Things 29
Being There with Things 29
Material Culture and Materiality 32
Cognition and the Extended Mind 36
Conclusion: Things R Us 39
3 Things Depend on Other Things 41
Forms of Connection Between Things 43
Production and Reproduction 43
Exchange 43
Use 44
Consumption 44
Discard 44
Post-deposition 44
Affordances 49
From Affordance to Dependence 51
The French School - Operational Chains 52
Behavioral Chains 54
Things Depend on Past Things and on Future Things 58
Entangled Ideas 58
Conclusion 59
4 Things Depend on Humans 65
Things Fall Apart 68
Behavioral Archaeology and Material Behavior 70
Behavioral Ecology 74
Human Behavioral Ecology 79
The Temporalities of Things 83
Conclusion: The Unruliness of Things 84
5 Human-Human Entanglement 86
Inequality, Power and Entanglement 87
Poverty Traps 90
Emotional Bonds 92
Conclusion 93
6 Exploring Entanglement 95
The Physical Processes of Things 95
Temporalities 98
Forgetness 101
The Tautness of Entanglements and Path Dependency 103
Types and Degrees of Entanglement 105
Cores and Peripheries of Entanglements 108
Contingency 109
Conclusion 111
7 Entangled Abstractions and Bodily Engagements 113
Abstraction, Metaphor and Mimesis 114
From Granola to Beethoven 117
Abstract Entanglements at Çatalhöyük 123
Conclusion 126
8 Two Examples Regarding the Onset of Domestication and Sedentary Village Life: China and the Middle East 128
China 128
Middle East 130
Conclusion 138
9 Method 139
Tanglegrams 140
Formal Network Approaches 144
Sequencing Entanglements 147
Diachronic Entanglements 152
Interpretation 156
Conclusion 159
10 Toward an Entangled String Theory and Comparison with Other Approaches 160
Things Do Not Have Agency 161
There Is No Present, Only a Flow from Past to Future 163
Toward an Entangled String Theory 164
Other Contemporary Approaches 171
Latour and Actor Network Theory 172
Assemblage Theory 175
Containment and Enchainment 176
Ontologies 177
Material Engagement Theory 178
Agential Realism 179
Conclusion 180
11 Conclusion: From Things to Flows 182
Aquatic Culture? 182
Some Final Examples 183
Some Loose Ends 186
Bibliography 189
Index 209
