Situating gazes: a perspectivist experience of thought about Aguada tricolor anthropomorphic vessels from Ambato (Catamarca, Argentina, VI-XI centuries a.C.)
Abstract
From a perspective focused on a dialogue between the perspectivist South American native ontology and the author’s academic one, we present the study of a particular record, of Aguada anthropomorphic vessels. The goal is to estimate the validity of the former perspective and its potential in the interpretation of particular objects and their various relationships in their original societies. From a point of view that aims to be ontologically situated in that past context, an experience of thought and translation is proposed, which implies a dialogue between the principles of perspectivism and specific considerations from archaeology; especially, the relationships with things and materiality in general. All of this aims to attend “things” in their own terms, as they are presented in their material contexts and their relational meshwork, rather than assuming that they represent something else. It is analyzed how these vessels could have been non-human persons and the modes of their de-subjectivation/objectification, by studying their manufacture, shape, functions, intentional breaking, care, and their intra-site locations, through specific cases in excavated contexts.Downloads
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