Stop! Hammer time!

Let me begin by addressing a pivotal opening claim by Lindstrøm (Reference Lindstrøm2015, 207): everything looks like a nail if you're holding a hammer. For a number of archaeologists, Lindstrøm contends, ‘agency’ has become the hammer, because they believe that everything (every thing, literally) is acting as an agent, regardless of the ‘true’ nature of things. I will make the case that Lindstrøm is in fact the one swinging the hammer against a very mixed and broad variety of notions of non-human agency with little or no care for differences between them. To Lindstrøm, it seems, all forms of non-human agency look the same, and should be hammered by the same counterargument. This is the premise of Lindstrøm's critique, which I believe is suffering from a number of crucial problems, the most important of which are (1) a lack of justification in the portrait of uses of object agency, (2) a confidence in Cartesian scientism as a solution to ontological challenges posed by post-humanist orientations in archaeology and academia more widely and (3) a lack of justification in the portrait of the aims of symmetrical archaeology.

Lindstrøm offers an interesting critique – and largely also a rejection – of the notion of ‘object agency’ as it has been developing in anthropology and archaeology over the past 15 years or so. She argues that agency is an inappropriate term to use when describing the effects that non-human phenomena can take in the world, contending instead that agency can only be grounded in intentionality. This critique is not new (e.g. Johannsen Reference Johannsen, Johannsen, Jessen and Jensen2012; Morphy Reference Morphy2009), yet it may offer a welcome challenge of object agency in archaeology and other post-humanist orientations, which is currently proliferating in some parts of the archaeological milieu.

Lindstrøm argues that object agency is now used widely across archaeology as a uniform, homogeneous, ‘one-size-fits-all’ concept in archaeology (ibid., 221). However, I contend that most applications of object agency – implicitly or explicitly – somehow pay attention to Alfred Gell's pertinent argument that objects and people can be agents, but not necessarily are agents. This means that agency does not simply exist as an ever-present force in objects, but rather that it issues forth in specific contexts and with particular consequences. So when Gell describes an agent as one who ‘causes events to happen’ (Gell Reference Gell1998, 16) it is clear that objects do not have agency; i.e. they do not possess agency as an inherent or constant attribute similar to weight or colour (although this distinction is sometimes lost linguistically in the literature); rather, they produce agency (Malafouris Reference Malafouris, Knappett and Malafouris2008, 34). Hence agency is a qualitative, relational effect (or ‘effective agency’ in the words of Robb Reference Robb, Demarrais, Gosden and Renfrew2004, 132): ‘dolls and cars can appear as “agents” in particular social situations’ (Gell Reference Gell1998, 19, emphasis added). This implies that agency is not a property of objects at all times or in all situations and relations, issuing forth in uniform ways. Lindstrøm seems – somewhat strategically – to set aside this important aspect of Gell's notion of agency in order to render its use homogeneous, or synonymous with animism.

Lindstrøm argues that any definition of agency needs to hinge on intentionality, because otherwise it is simply a psychological and neurological projection of a ‘will’ in ‘inanimate’ objects (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 215, 222). According to Lindstrøm, agency can be no more than metaphorical when relating to non-humans (ibid., 208), because people ‘tend to know the difference’ between people and things (ibid., 216). She then moves on to reference a number of examples of the difference between the animate and the inanimate, saying, for instance, that children do know that dolls are nothing but dolls (ibid). However, this representation of agency and ‘animation’ is not entirely justified, because one of the key points in Gell's theory of agency is that it is situational, contextual and contingent. Hence the doll is alive for the child ‘for a time at any rate’ (Gell Reference Gell1998, 18); i.e. the doll is alive while the child is playing with it, and ‘just’ a doll at any other time. Agency is, in other words, not a constant, and agency does not issue forth in a uniform way. It is always dependent on context and causal effects, and agential qualities therefore cannot be predefined or condensed to a model of ‘agency mechanics’. Object agency is by definition only observable after the fact:

On the contrary, Lindstrøm points to a ‘well-established’ definition of agency: ‘“agency” may be defined as the physical capacity to initiate actions on one's own behalf’ (Johannsen Reference Johannsen, Johannsen, Jessen and Jensen2012, 339). This definition of agency as an inherent capacity may, moreover, be contested by pointing to common uses of ‘agency’. For instance, we may recall how an ‘agent’ can take the form both of a person acting on behalf of an authority (e.g. the ‘Danish Agency for Culture’) and of an active chemical producing medical reactions. Such notions of agency and agents would comply with Gell's definition of ‘distributed personhood’, extending ‘beyond the body-boundary’ (Gell Reference Gell1998, 104); for instance, an intelligence agency is distributed in assets working to its end in clandestine operations, or a chemical agent serves the purpose of achieving an end, but not on behalf of itself.

Furthermore, within a post-phenomenological framework intentionality can also be extended beyond the confines of the psychological definitions pursued by Lindstrøm (Reference Lindstrøm2015, 223–24). Peter-Paul Verbeek thus argues,

This leads Verbeek to argue, much in the same vein as Latour (e.g. Reference Latour and Graves-Brown2000), that humanity and technology cannot be separated. The ‘material form of intentionality’, he argues, is indeed different from human intentionality, because ‘material intentionality’ hinges on relations with humans, but human choice is also ‘co-shaped by technological artifacts’, yet not determined by them (Verbeek Reference Verbeek, Kroes, Vermaas, Light, Moore and Verbeek2008, 95–96). This does not relieve humans of moral responsibility, which Lindstrøm sees as the consequence of object agency (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 222), because the capacity to draw moral and ethical judgement rests on humans alone (Verbeek Reference Verbeek2006, 378–79; 2008, 98). However, Verbeek argues, technology and, by implication, artefacts are not neutral; they are the conditions for making decisions, and hence it is important to explore how they direct us.

It is precisely this non-neutrality of non-humans that scholars like Gell, Latour and the proponents of symmetrical archaeology ask us to appreciate. The latter, importantly, is critical of Gell's notion of agency, because it fundamentally depends on human intentionality, thus presupposing an asymmetrical relation between humans and things (Webmoor Reference Webmoor2007, 568). In fact, symmetrical archaeology can be said to return to the ordinary definition of agency as per the Oxford English Dictionary (cited in Bille Reference Bille, Christensen and Willerslev2013, 139):

Here, intentionality is not necessarily a part of the equation. Rather, ‘agency’ is to be considered the diagnosis of the fact that something actively happens, while ‘effect’ is the description of what happens, and ‘intention’ or ‘causality’ is the mechanical explanation of why it happens.

Studies discussing or relating to object agency tend not to revolve around the ‘whodunit’ question, aiming to identify the agent behind a causal effect. The objective is rather to explore the interconnectedness of various agencies, or the interactivity of ‘agents’ and ‘patients’ in Gell's terminology. This is quite clearly the aim of most studies applying an agency approach to the material world (e.g. Bille Reference Bille, Christensen and Willerslev2013; Bille and Sørensen Reference Bille and Sørensen2007; Byrne et al. Reference Byrne, Clarke, Harrison and Torrence2011; Harper Reference Harper2010; Ling and Cornell Reference Ling and Cornell2010; Pollard Reference Pollard, Mills and Walker2008; Sørensen Reference Sørensen2009; Van Oyen Reference Van Oyen2015; Verbeek Reference Verbeek2005; Williams Reference Williams2004), or the Latourian-inspired symmetrical archaeology, pursuing an appreciation of the alterity of actants in the world (e.g. Olsen Reference Olsen2010; Olsen et al. Reference Olsen, Shanks, Webmoor and Witmore2012). Lindstrøm caricatures such approaches to object agency as a flat, homogeneous model, applicable to everything, at any time and with ‘much the same kind of agency’ (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 211). In contrast, I contend that any definition of agency – whether human or non-human – is a temporary, contextual, situated and contingent occurrence, and, as a consequence, not an inherent, mechanical and generic property of things: ‘Agency is the relational and emergent product of material engagement. It is not something given but something to become realised’ (Malafouris Reference Malafouris, Knappett and Malafouris2008, 34).

Object agency present-at-hand versus object agency ready-to-hand

Then, rather than seeing agency through its a priori definition, hinging on intentionality, object agency should be studied for its de facto effects. Running the risk of ‘reinventing the wheel’ (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 213), I suggest that it may be worthwhile to differentiate between agency as present-at-hand and agency as ready-to-hand. In the philosophy of Martin Heidegger (Reference Heidegger1962, §15), present-at-hand implies an objective concern with a phenomenon: the neutral, factual observation of an artefact. Heidegger happens to use the example of a hammer to illustrate how our ordinary non-analytical engagements with things do in fact not issue forth as present-at-hand, but instead as ready-to-hand. Normally, in the ordinary use of a hammer, we do not consciously attend to the hammer in an objective way; rather, when we are absorbed in the activity of hammering, the hammer is in alignment with our bodily operation as a seamless extension of the body. Heidegger famously argues that we only start contemplating the hammer in an objective and scrutinizing fashion when it breaks or malfunctions. Otherwise, we do not think of the hammer as a composite tool made up of a head of steel and a handle of ash or hickory. It is simply a hammer, driving nails into another object.

I suggest that this distinction can be applied to the discussion of object agency in a rather simple way: we can predefine what a ‘hammer’ or ‘agency’ is by scrutinizing it objectively, but it is not until we observe it in practice that we understand its potential and effects. This implies that the a priori definition of ‘hammer’ or ‘agency’ does not fully account for the myriad of contexts within which these phenomena issue forth or how they take effect in their relation to their particular surroundings. Agency is thus not a predefined attribute, but emerges contextually. Or, as Astrid van Oyen has recently argued, ‘A relational ontology comes with a model of distributed agency, where agency is not a priori located – either in persons or things – but draws upon constellations that have a traceable effect’ (Van Oyen Reference Van Oyen2015, 65). So agency can either be distinguished along the lines of certain predefined criteria (e.g. intentionality) or approached after the fact, emerging through its effects.

But more than that, Heidegger's distinction between present-at-hand and ready-to-hand also brings out the fact that the ready-to-hand experience implies the seamless integration of what is otherwise distinguished clearly as subject and object: in the operation of the hammer, the hammer is unconsciously experienced as an extension of the body. And while the hammer is a banal example that can always be distinguished upon reflection, the point is that several other occurrences in the world are practised with little or no attention to their separation. Rather, we are immersed in our environment (Umwelt in Heidegger's terminology): I do indeed know that I swing the hammer, but it is the effects of the hammer and the energy released by my body in unison that drives the nail into the wood. This is – if I am not mistaken – precisely the point of symmetrical archaeology (following e.g. Olsen Reference Olsen2003). However, according to Lindstrøm, the symmetrical critique results in taking the notion of agency ‘to the extreme’ (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 209), echoing Howard Morphy's verdict on Gell: ‘Gell's agentive object, however seductive it may at first seem, is a case of an analogy gone too far’ (Morphy Reference Morphy2009, 6)

Lindstrøm argues that symmetrical archaeology's ‘neologisms’ are instruments for creating a seeming innovation in the theoretical landscape, covering up the fact that there is nothing new in the notion of an imbricated human–object world or about the continuities of nature–culture (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 212). However, the point of symmetrical archaeology is not simply to show that people and things live with and through one another. Lindstrøm is indeed correct when arguing that we already knew that. Proponents of symmetrical archaeology are clearly also aware that we already knew that (Webmoor Reference Webmoor2007, 565). The point of symmetrical archaeology's critique is that we do not seem to take the consequences of this knowledge. As Latour argues (Reference Latour1993), we continue to divide the world into artificial, impractical and deceptive binaries (human versus non-human, subject versus object, society versus nature) that are unhelpful for our way of understanding how people go about their everyday practices as well as their more fundamental conceptualizations of the world. The point of symmetrical archaeology is precisely to challenge the a priori binaries and anthropocentrism of modernist thinking. This aim is disregarded throughout Lindstrøm's article, whereby her argument falls back on a trivial discussion about whether things ‘have’ agency, furthermore allowing her to reduce symmetrical archaeology to being concerned with simply demonstrating that stuff matters.

The aim of symmetrical archaeology is obviously not to prove that humans and non-humans are infiltrated in one another. It is rather about trying to understand how and why this infiltration occurs, and what the consequences are for the continuity of humans and non-humans. The aim of symmetrical archaeology is thus to explore how humans and non-humans coexist, and what implications the distinction between humans and non-humans has for our understanding of past and present (and their intersections), and of ethics and responsibilities on the part of humans (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015; Olsen Reference Olsen and Hodder2012; Olsen et al. Reference Olsen, Shanks, Webmoor and Witmore2012; Webmoor Reference Webmoor, Fortenberry and McAtackney2012). In short, symmetrical archaeology questions conventional Cartesian ontology in favour of a flat, heterogeneous ontology. And that has not been pursued in archaeology before, at least not with the ramifications implied by symmetrical archaeology.

The joint dissolution of both collectors

So, like Latour, symmetrical archaeology argues that modernity has made an incision into a primordial and seemingly natural unity by constructing an artificial and unhelpful separation of humans and non-humans and of culture/society and nature. This implies that an original authentic whole has been severed and disconnected by modernity, and Latour's project is to put these phenomena back into their proper context again (Latour Reference Latour1993; Reference Latour2004; Reference Latour2005). The extension of this ambition to archaeology may seem a natural disposition for this particular discipline, since we might expect archaeologists always to have been aware of the intricate connectivity of people and things in the formation of societies, yet, of course, often adopting a very different attitude to their respective agencies. In an often-cited article, Olsen (Reference Olsen2003) speaks of the ‘re-membering’ of things; a useful and illustrative play on words that indicates that we somehow need to reunite a continuum that has been dismembered. The implication is that an organic whole of people-and-things and culture-and-nature has been misunderstood and severed conceptually in the Cartesian project, in modernity, and, by extension, in archaeology.

The archaeological resolution to the modernist purification of people-and-things adopted in symmetrical archaeology derives its label from the subtitle of the French original of Latour's We have never been modern: ‘essai d'anthropologie symétrique’ (Olsen Reference Olsen and Hodder2012, 210–11). Hence the expression ‘symmetrical archaeology’, with its associated manifesto. Importantly, Latour (Reference Latour2005, 76 n. 89, original emphasis) later made a significant disclaimer as to the use of the term ‘symmetry’, realizing

The ‘joint dissolution of both collectors’ can, in my reading, only imply the disbanding of classifications in favour of a total recognition of the alterity of everything. It implies that all human beings are just as different as all things; all people are as different from each other as a person from a hammer or a nail, and vice versa: all hammers are as different from each other as people from nails.

While I believe that Lindstrøm's critique of symmetrical archaeology fails to recognize a number of crucial principles of the symmetrical agenda, I acknowledge that she – and other critics – may find certain aspects of symmetrical archaeology confusing. So while Olsen and Witmore provide a number of useful clarifications in their recent defence, I do believe that what they call ‘misrepresentations’ (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015, 194) actually originate within the symmetrical literature itself, and not solely in misconceived and stubbornly reluctant receptions of these writings. In their recent defence, as well as in other publications (e.g. Olsen Reference Olsen and Hodder2012, 211; Witmore Reference Witmore2007, 547), Olsen and Witmore emphasize that symmetrical archaeology does not propose a primitive and straightforward relationship between people and things. Symmetrical archaeology is not synonymous with even, balanced or undifferentiated equality, but with a heterogeneous distribution of different people and different things in a larger continuum. This is a world without oppositions between phenomena; things are differentiated but ‘non-oppositional’ (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015, 191).

Yet then we are told that symmetrical archaeology should not be conflated with the principle of symmetry (ibid., 193), which – honestly – leaves me with some confusion as to the point of using the term ‘“symmetrical” archaeology’ in the first place. I am fully in agreement with the proposition that symmetry and difference can be aligned, but at the same time I suspect that the linguistic affinity between ‘symmetrical archaeology’, ‘the principle of symmetry’ and ‘symmetrical levelling’ may lead some readers to be perplexed about the precise aims of the agenda.

For my own part, I confess to a grave and embarrassing misreading of Witmore's manifesto in the passage, where he states that ‘symmetrical levelling is neither axiological nor ethical’ (Witmore Reference Witmore2007, 547). In a recent article, I mistook this to imply that symmetrical archaeology advocated a levelling of the Cartesian hierarchy between subject and object, leading me subsequently to, wrongfully, accusing Witmore of divorcing practice and politics (Sørensen Reference Sørensen2013, 4). Only more recently did I realize that Witmore actually says that the levelling of differences is in fact the very problem (e.g. Webmoor and Witmore Reference Webmoor and Witmore2008, 61). Obviously, the misapprehension is an error on my part, yet I do believe the misreading is symptomatic of many receptions of symmetrical archaeology: I made the mistake of ‘freely’ substituting ‘the principle of symmetry with symmetrical archaeology’ (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015, 193), yet I suspect that I am not alone in wondering, if symmetrical archaeology is not about symmetry, then what is it about?

It is, of course, somewhat ironic – or at least potentially confusing – that the term ‘symmetrical archaeology’ should be coined and consolidated in a manifesto (Shanks Reference Shanks2007; Witmore Reference Witmore2007), when its court philosopher had chosen to part with the term ‘symmetry’, as discussed above (see also Olsen Reference Olsen and Hodder2012, 210–11). Why the import of the term, one may wonder, when it is abandoned within an instant? What is its purchase? Why not opt for another idiom?

We are told, ‘Once full recovery from these ailments [i.e. modernist bifurcations] is within reach, there will be no need for “symmetrical” as a qualifying adjective’ (Witmore Reference Witmore2007, 547). Olsen relates how symmetrical archaeology ‘started out as a modest plea for paying attention to how societies consist of far more entities than those usually given precedence’ (Olsen Reference Olsen and Hodder2012, 211, emphasis added). Elsewhere, we find that symmetrical archaeology is not a school of thought or a theoretical paradigm, but an ‘attitude’ (Shanks Reference Shanks2007, 591). Olsen and Witmore convey symmetry as ‘a principle, a component, a guideline, and symmetrical archaeology began with a problem-oriented set of emphases, which have been lost in critical misrepresentation. It was never a full-blown platform’ (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015, 194).

I suspect that the ambiguity and resistance in some receptions of symmetrical archaeology stem precisely from these humble ‘pleas’, ‘attitudes’ and ‘principles’, because in fact the proponents of symmetrical archaeology ask us – although modestly – to do away with centuries of Cartesian dualism overnight. For this reason, the modesty and seeming innocence is lost on me, since the symmetrical programme always revolved around a fundamental and admirably ambitious reorientation of the conventional coordinates of people and things within archaeology, grounded in a Latourian critique of modernity. Olsen and Witmore argue, ‘The “symmetrical” was always provisional. Once its liberating effects were expended as an adjectival qualifier, it was ready to be shed’ (ibid., 194). The past tense seems to suggest that the ‘symmetrical’ is now finally a discontinued term. But at the same time, Olsen and Witmore throw their hands up, claiming that it is not up to them to define when the term ‘symmetry’ has become obsolete ‘as an adjectival qualifier’ (ibid).

While Lindstrøm's critique of symmetrical archaeology obviously represents an ardent resistance to such a move, I have previously (Sørensen Reference Sørensen2013) addressed the paradoxical coexistence of Cartesian dualism (its hierarchical ontology) and the Latourian-inspired flat ontology. My argument was that even though archaeology and the practitioners of the heritage sector base their management of artefacts on a dualist predisposition (hence the title ‘we have never been Latourian’), they do in fact practise an at least seeming symmetrical attitude by extending a care for objects. In other words, on the one hand archaeology may find it difficult to think a flat ontology,Footnote ¹ yet on the other hand the actual care for things implies an at least de facto ‘flattish’ ontological practice. My critique was that internal hierarchies and distinctions are reproduced uncritically within these practices of caring, singling out ‘heritage celebrities’ from ‘archaeological remains’ (or ‘mundane things’). My proposal was not, as Olsen and Witmore claim, to extend ‘existing norms through the inclusion of excluded others’, nor to argue that ‘the rights that humans have should be transferred to disenfranchised non-humans’ (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015, 193). Rather, the idea was to question any existing, default attitudes to heritage and ethics, ideally disbanding the very concept of ‘heritage’, which I see as a colonial, confining and disempowering discourse, galvanizing existing structures of ownership and authority. This includes modernist binaries between people and things, impeding the appreciation and communication of alterity.

The rift, as I see it, is thus not just between humans and non-humans, but also issues forth in arbitrary ethical hierarchies (Sørensen Reference Sørensen2013, 4), and my argument was in fact in full agreement with Olsen and Witmore's fundamental questioning of where we draw the line between ‘things’ and ‘sentient beings’, and to what end these discriminations are made (Olsen and Witmore Reference Olsen and Witmore2015, 188). Olsen and Witmore contend that I produce ‘a disquieting confusion of ethics and ontology’ and that things for me are ‘reducible to ethics, politics, or anything else’ (ibid., 193). Nevertheless, my argument was precisely that ethics are already extended to things through politics of caring and caressing certain artefacts, located at the higher echelons of the heritage hierarchy, but that these politics are in fact creating problems for our ethics of other artefacts as well as people. This is the reason why I (Sørensen Reference Sørensen2013, 12–13) made the case that Britt Solli's contention that some things can defend themselves (Solli Reference Solli2011, 47) is ‘radical’, because it assumes that agency is a property that has a predefined causal consequence: in her case that the age and aesthetics of a particular historic church in Norway will compel people to its safeguarding. But if this were the case, why did the Bamiyan Buddhas not defend themselves?

Finally, I suspect that Olsen and Witmore's recent defence – although helpful in clarifying many aspects of symmetrical archaeology – also adds to the confusion. Their response is titled ‘Archaeology, symmetry and the ontology of things’. Why not the ‘ontology of things and people’ or simply ‘ontology’? Does it make sense at all – at least philosophically speaking – to define an ontology of things as a separate ontology? I imagine that Olsen and Witmore are not willing to subscribe to an ontology of things as opposed to an ontology of people, but I find it difficult to escape this characterization based on their choice of vocabulary. This implication is also embedded in subtitles like ‘Archaeology and the ontology of objects’ (Olsen Reference Olsen2010) and ‘The discipline of things’ (Olsen et al. Reference Olsen, Shanks, Webmoor and Witmore2012). So while I am fully sympathetic to the project of ‘re-membering’ things in the social (Olsen Reference Olsen2003; Latour Reference Latour2005), I cannot see how speaking of the ontology of objects will not result in sustaining or even proliferating the division of people and things, rather than contributing to the ‘joint dissolution of both collectors’.

Maybe language is what is dividing us, and it might be more useful to revise the ‘symmetrical’ vocabulary beyond the term ‘symmetry’. If ‘things’ are indeed ‘gatherings’ (Webmoor and Witmore Reference Webmoor and Witmore2008, 64), compromising old-fashioned modernist binaries, and if ‘things are us’ (ibid); if ‘nothing should be excluded because of an arbitrary divide between made and unmade objects, artifacts and ecofacts or externs, kinetic and inert, humans and non-humans’ (Witmore Reference Witmore2014, 206), then it might be more helpful to define a ‘humanity beginning with things’ (following Webmoor and Witmore Reference Webmoor and Witmore2008, 65) through ontologies of mixtures (ibid., 61) rather than ontologies of things.

Different ontologies

This leads me to a final point of criticism in Lindstrøm, as I believe she illustrates the absolute necessity for cultural analyses to pursue an emic perspective on ontology, complementing – sometimes contrasting – Western notions of being and reality. This is not out of respect for the Other, as Lindstrøm claims (Reference Lindstrøm2015, 222), but out of sheer academic necessity: if we want to understand the Other, it would be misguided to start out by assuming that her or his perception of the world is wrong, just because it does not match our ontological categories and scientific logics. The imperative for grasping difference in cultural analyses (e.g. in anthropology, archaeology) derives from a need to explore how people practise their world. Cultural analyses are not necessarily about truth, not about what the world really is, but about how people deal with the world and perceive it, regardless of whether ‘we’ (Western logic-based scholars) hold their practices and world views to rest on false premises and delusion.

Take, for instance, the traditional Roman Catholic Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the priest transforms bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ. In the Protestant Church this event is a symbolic commemoration of Christ and the Last Supper, yet the Roman Catholic Eucharist is an actual transformation of earthly matter into divine presence. In this magical event of ‘transubstantiation’, Christ becomes present (the ‘Real presence of Christ’), even though the bread and the wine does not change outward appearance (Jessen and Sørensen Reference Jessen, Sørensen and Jørgensen2015). The question is, then, whether the aim of a cultural analysis is to highlight the transubstantiation as delusion and deception, or to try to unravel what this practice means for our understanding of materiality, senses, divinity, presence, worship and so on. The real presence of Christ can probably be explained through some neurological ‘wiring’ in the brain (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 215), but this does not make Christ less present for the worshipper, and I would be far more interested in trying to understand the perceived reality of this magical event than having it explained through the mechanics of natural science.

In this context it also becomes somewhat problematic when Lindstrøm states, I am convinced that there are no differences between ethnic groups regarding rationality and irrationality. And cultures that are labelled ‘animistic’ and ‘shamanistic’ do recognize animals, stones and plants as being somewhat different and distinct from humans, and from each other (ibid., 218). Two points make this contention problematic: first, why is it hard to believe that other people have different perceptions of the animism or enchantment of matter? The problem is indeed that Lindstrøm finds it hard to believe in such world views, yet ethnography is replete with examples of stones, animals and houses with a soul, or ghosts taking effect in people's lives. Second, the point is exactly that stones, animals and other material phenomena are different and recognized as different in animistic and shamanistic ‘cultures’. This is precisely what Rane Willerslev (e.g. Reference Willerslev2004; Reference Willerslev2009) and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (e.g. Reference Viveiros de Castro1998; Reference Viveiros de Castro2004) demonstrate empirically ever so clearly. Lindstrøm refers to Willerslev's informant, who states that ‘humans, elk and bears think differently. They are different kinds of people’ (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 218). In this, the informant is spelling out in the most crystal-clear language that this is all about differences. Humans, elk and bears are not the same, yet they regard themselves as people – different people – and it is utterly mistaken to portray their world as ‘an undifferentiated fusion of “pebbles, peanuts, ponies and people” with the same kind of agency’ (ibid., 211). Precisely because they are different people, they produce different kinds of agency.

Lindstrøm then argues that agency has been attributed to things out of a respect for cultures with ontologies different to those of Western societies, but contends, ‘Respect for others does not preclude self-respect’ (ibid., 220). With all respect (and self-respect), I cannot see how Lindstrøm can qualify this claim. The interest in societies around the world that do not share the Western scientific troubles with object agency actually originates in an academic obligation to understand the Other and human alterity. It is not a project about democratizing academia or having ‘respect’ for indigenous people, as Lindstrøm strangely claims; it is simply an attempt to properly understand other ways of perceiving and practising the world. I am curious why Lindstrøm does not see this challenge as an invitation precisely to embrace ontological alterity, making room for exploring how we can understand – on its own terms – that which escapes our predefined coordinates of logic, science and objectivity. It appears that Lindstrøm cares little or not at all for distinguishing between emic and etic accounts of reality.

To Lindstrøm, ‘truths . . . are not established through democratic processes . . . nor by respect for other cultures or religious fundamentalists’, and she argues that acknowledging the existence of ‘different ontologies’ is not the same as ratifying them (Lindstrøm Reference Lindstrøm2015, 220). It is not entirely clear what is implied by ‘ratifying’, but I doubt that any even tentative understanding (Verstehen) of ontological alterity can be realized without an analytical leap of faith, granting that very alterity some degree of purchase. I wonder how any form of anthropological or archaeological understanding of the Other is possible without suspending our own sense of reality temporarily for analytical purposes. And here I might need to stress that empathy with the Other is not synonymous with sympathy, nor with becoming (even like) the Other.