Graduate Student, Classics
Darwin College
Thesis Title: Doing sigillata, enacting similarity and difference
About
My current PhD research focuses on knowledge systems in the production of Roman terra sigillata. While the theoretical baseline is largely inspired by Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) and recent insights in material culture studies, the aim is to explore how these can be actively modelled to suit archaeology’s disciplinary toolbox, and how the latter can contribute to broader theoretical debates in the social sciences. The anthropology of technological choices is forwarded as an entrance point to access the contingency of past knowledge systems. Furthermore, it is explored to what extent the interpretations of postcolonial theory can build on and benefit from the analytical framework of ANT.
With regard to the production of Roman terra sigillata ceramics, this research seeks to question the boundaries of the concept of terra sigillata, and to shift from a preoccupation with labelling to a focus on practice. This entails rethinking some well-rehearsed notions such as ‘imitation’ and ‘norm’ from a relational rather than essentializing perspective. The input of ANT in this regard is great, not only by redefining the terms of the debate, but also by urging new questions to be asked, with a general shift from ‘who’ or ‘why’ to ‘how’. Nevertheless, creative interference (or should we say translation) is needed to make ANT work for archaeology.
