Intersections: Conceptualizing an Archaeology of Rest (15 min)

Presenters

Mitch Hendrickson, University of Illinois at Chicago; Tarini Bedi, University of Illinois at Chicago; and Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius, University of Illinois at Chicago

Abstract

Recent discussions of mobility have dramatically transformed the way anthropologists study the act of travel but have yet to conceptualize what happens when people need to stop. Beyond physiological considerations, we present a collaborative research framework and method where places of rest within road systems historically serve as critical loci for social construction, interaction, individual well-being, and reaction. Combining multiscalar evidence from Angkorian Cambodia (ninth to 14th centuries C.E.), postclassic period Mexico (10th to 14th centuries C.E.) and Mughal India (16th to 19th centuries C.E.) as well as ethnographic literatures, we investigate the range of spatial, social, and corporeal practices of rest and the landscapes that emerge along global roads and within urban centers. This historical approach to rest focuses on the combined analysis of three concepts: (1) rest places: the positioning, configuration, and infrastructures of rest stops within road networks; (2) rest histories: the shifting use of a given road system and resting place over time; and (3) rest actions: the intended and unintended social interactions that take place at individual locations. Instead of understanding roads as fixed infrastructures along which rest and resting are incidental practices, we ask how the materiality and sociality of rest creates the infrastructural and material landscapes of the road itself and is in turn shaped by these conditions.