Making as a didactic process: Situated cognition and the chaîne opératoire

The chaîne opératoire is one of the most powerful tools that archaeologists can use to link artifacts and people through the physicality of skilled movement. In many applications, interpretations developed through the use of the chaîne opératoire are based on the idea that patterned gestures are guided by a representational or schematic knowledge that exists prior and separate to activity involved in making. In contrast, the growing interdisciplinary field of situated cognition sees knowing as an ecological question involving a developmental interdependence of the body, materials, social relations, and the environment. Through ethnoarchaeological observations of Inuit kayak making in West Greenland, this paper explores the implications of Material Engagement Theory for how archaeologists construe technical activity. Through illustrative episodes from the fieldwork, this paper demonstrates that: 1) the knowledge involved in kayak making is fundamentally sensorimotor and kinaesthetic in nature, and can only exist between generations through a process of co-construction; 2) this co-construction of knowledge takes place through environmentally and materially situated practice; and 3) the question of knowing how to make a kayak is not separate from the life process of becoming a skilled kayaker. For Greenlandic kayakers, making a kayak is not the acting out of an internalized script for enchained action, but a didactic process that cultivates capacities for awareness and response that are critical to being a skilled hunter. The research contributes broadly to the application of Material Engagement Theory in archaeological practice.