Distributed Sovereignty: Rethinking Nationhood and Material Agency

• In Event: 3184 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Material Culture

Abstract

Alfred Gell's theory of agency has been rediscovered and newly applied in sociological studies of culture, with important conceptual advances for how artworks and other cultural objects shape social life. A key area of theoretical gain is nationalism, with scholars using Gell's insights to advance their analytical agenda beyond rhetoric and symbols to the full range of sensorial and cognitive encounters with things. There remains a gap, however, between formal power and nationalism in these studies. A case in point is Italy, where artifactual politics coalesced into a social and political system in the stormy years of nation-formation (1870-1909). Throughout this process, artifacts provided material solidity in the absence of territorial security. Where state sovereignty could not be assured through administrative or military practice, artifacts were invoked as sovereign agents. I build on Gell's concept of distributed personhood to offer a revised theory of sovereignty.

Author

• Fiona Greenland, University of Virginia