Living life forward: Technology, time, and society in a Sri Lankan potter community

Abstract

AbstractClassically, anthropologists and archaeologists characterized socioeconomic systems by their technologies and the relations of production they engaged. We used labels like “forager” and “horticulturalist,” believing them to be accompanied by suites of sociocultural features that comprised systems in equilibrium until disturbed exogenously. But when we closely examine actual technologies in use, we find that change and variability, not stasis and homogeneity, are the norm. People adopt, adapt, innovate, and improvise their technological, social, and cultural practices in a process that is both ongoing and recursive. In this article, I use this perspective and a longitudinal case study to rethink technology's social embeddedness, drawing on the concept of technology assemblage as developed by complexity theorist W. Brian Arthur. The case study is of a rural Sri Lankan potter community where I have conducted research since 1974. The potters' story supports Arthur's contention that technological innovation is not a one‐off event but rather an ongoing process of accumulative and recursive problem solving. With detailed, longitudinal, and ethnographic data, we can trace innovation cascades over time and see how new forms of self and community emerge, all of which limits and enables, but does not predetermine, what emerges next.