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Journal of Social Archaeology
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The limitations of doxa

Agency and subjectivity from an archaeological point of view

Adam T. Smith

Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, atsmith{at}uchicago.edu

In recent years, archaeological discussions of agency have relied quite heavily upon Pierre Bourdieu’s rendering of doxa in discriminating between those phenomena resulting from habit and those from active intention. However, doxa presents considerable problems for archaeological analyses as it rests upon a troubling theory of history and fails to assist in promulgating an archaeological account of subjectivity. This article presents an explicitly archaeological critique of Bourdieu’s doxa, utilizing a decorated silver-plated goblet from the Middle Bronze Age site of Karashamb, Armenia, to explore future directions in the theorization of subjectivity.

Key Words: agency • Armenia • Caucasia • doxa • ideology • Karashamb • Middle Bronze Age • representation • subjectivity

Journal of Social Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 2, 155-171 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/146960530100100201
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