Networks or Work-nets? Actor-Network Theory and Multiple Social Topologies in the Production of Roman Terra Sigillata

Abstract

This paper has a threefold aim: to clarify some misunderstandings concerning so-called ‘actor–network theory’ (ANT), to show how ANT can be put to use in archaeology, and to articulate differences from, overlaps, and possible combinations with ‘conventional’ network analysis. The key argument is that whereas networks imply direct and untransformed flows between bounded entities, ANT renders visible the heterogeneous ‘work-nets’ needed to support and stabilize these networks and the entities they connect. Moreover, networks are only one constellation or social topology that can emerge from such worknets, and we thus need to be cautious not to project properties of networks onto other constellations. Finally, ANT introduces a much-needed dynamic approach in which stability and uniformity of categories and flows is the outcome of contingent processes of maintenance work, and not the starting point. This has important consequences for how we conceive of material culture, and hence of our data, in archaeology: archaeological network analysis tends to assume stable, invariable, and comparable things, traits, or properties. One extreme example of this tendency is so-called terra sigillata, a type of Roman pottery that is so easily recognizable and so well-studied that its stability and invariability across contexts and practices is, to a large extent, taken for granted. The problem is that the starting position of sigillata as a category already posits a particular, non-neutral social topology, with certain possibilities for action. By analysing changes and continuities in the practices by which this type of pottery was produced in a single site in central France, however, this paper will explore some of the problems with this assumption, and suggest ways of resolving these issues. Networks. What’s in a word? Following the recent buzz around networks in everyday and academic vocabulary, the answer seems to veer from ‘everything’ to ‘nothing’ and back. Stretched from a lightweight intuition to deepseated theoretical and methodological axioms, the term risks losing all real potential. Cynics are quick to warn that any discipline, theory, or method flying the banner of networks is amalgamated into a melting pot in which implicit, incompatible, or conflicting principles are stirred.