Martin Holbraad and Morten Axel Pedersen, The Ontological Turn: An Anthropological Exposition

LÓPEZ, ALEJANDRO MARTÍN

Journal of Skyscape Archaeology

Equinox Publishing

Lugar: Sheffield; Año: 2019 vol. 5 p. 108 - 115

2055-348X

This is a book review of an important book about the "Ontological Turn". Astronomy in culture, as an interdisciplinary field, addresses the ways in which the diversityof human groups construct, now and in the past, knowledge and practices relatedto the sky. Because of this, astronomy in culture should be in close relationship withtheoretical-methodological debates in social sciences. That is why this book is relevantto academics dedicated to this area of knowledge, as it deals with one of the most significantbut also controversial contemporary theoretical trends in social sciences since theend of the 1990s: the so-called "ontological turn". This is a theoretical and methodologicalperspective that is currently present in philosophy, the study of science and technology(STS), archaeology and anthropology. Although its roots are older, it has gained prominencesince the end of the 1990s. It is not a homogenous current, but it presents multiplevariants and also assumes specific characteristics in each academic discipline involved.It is the forms that the ontological turn has taken in anthropology that are of particularimportance for astronomy in culture. A sample of this relevance is the roundtable discussionon this very subject that was carried out at the meeting of SEAC 2018 in Graz, Austria.