Writing Wednesday: A Review of Charles Orser’s Mutualist Practice

I’ve been struggling over the last couple weeks to get back into a writing groove which isn’t great because I typically like to start my semester with a certain amount of momentum (it’s a bit like trying to get up to speed before having to climb a steep hill on your bike). 

I have, however, managed to muscle out a draft of a review of Charles Orser’s latest book Mutualist Archaeology. It’s rough around the edges, but it’s some words on the page! 

Charles Orser’s Mutualist Archaeology offers a sweeping perspective on the history of mutualism, its potential as an interpretative paradigm, and its role in reimagining the discipline of archaeology in the 21st century. Mutualism is a key component of anarchist thinking and Orser’s book joins a recent chorus of archaeologists who look to anarchism as both a paradigm for understanding the past and a source of inspiration in the present.

The first part of the book is an expansive discussion of mutualism in the fields of philosophy, economics, biology, and anthropology. This survey, which will be useful both to scholars who are unfamiliar with the history and permutations of mutualist thought, loosely frames his later application of mutualist thought to archaeological material and the discipline itself. Orser anchors mutualism in the anarchist writings of William Goodwin (1756-1836), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1856), and Peter Kropotkin (1842-1931). He traces the relationship of their work to those of contemporaries from Adam Smith to Charles Darwin, Auguste Comte, and Marcel Maus who explore the potential of mutualist thinking across their respective disciplines. This historical discussion culminates in a functional definition of mutualism centering on mutual aid. Orser distinguished mutual aid and mutualism from cooperation and altruism. Mutualism is distinct from cooperation because mutualism would occur simultaneously and create whereas cooperation could involve a considerable delay between the giver and receiver and that indicates a deeper interdependence than exists through cooperation. Altruism, for Orser, does not require mutuality at all as the flow of benefits moves in only one direction.  

It is in contrast to altruism and cooperation that Orser defines three requirements for mutual aid. First, there must be an understanding that two parties exist between whom exchange is possible. Orser calls this an awareness of self and other. Then, the mutual aid exchanged between the two parties must be immediate. This immediacy reinforces the connection between mutual aid and survival. The exchanges are not merely the accumulation of real or social capital over time, but a requirement for both parties to survive. To understand this requirement for survival, Orser argues that mutualism requires a careful attention to context. 

The second part of the book applies this definition to a number of archaeological and historical situations. Orser argues that mutualism structured the relationship between fur traders and Native American communities in the 17th century, the Arikara communities along the Missouri river, and the Hopewell culture in the Mississippi valley. Orser argues that the Arikara saw themselves as independent nodes across a complex trade network which involves both other independent villages and groups like the Sioux. The construction of fortified villages with palisades served to define communities as independent and represents an awareness of self-and-other. Both the Arikara and the Sioux relied on one another for their dietary needs. Finally, the diverse cultures present in the Missouri river created the context for these mutualist relationships. Orser read against the grain of a number of post-contact historical accounts to make these arguments suggesting that negative, or deeply skeptical, European attitudes toward mutual aide had already introduced bias into their view of indigenous societies. The other case studies in the second part of this book follow a similar pattern of argumentation. Specialists will undoubtedly take issue with specifics of Orser’s interpretation, but the range of case studies is sufficient to demonstrate the potential of mutualist readings of the past.

The final chapter of Part 2 considers the role that mutualism can play in contemporary archaeology as a discipline. In some ways, this represents most authentic expression of the formative advocates for mutualism. These thinkers were less concerned with mutualism in the past and more concerned with the potential for mutualism to transform their present and future. Orser notes that applying mutualist practice to the discipline of archaeology would produce a more caring practice that works collaborative with indigenous communities, contributes to social justice, and promotes collegiality rather than competition. These are salutary goals for the discipline whether achieved through a mutualist paradigm or other forms of altruistic and cooperative practice.

If there is a weakness in this book, it is that Orser could have engaged more fully with other archaeologists who have explored various expressions of mutualism and anarchism in their work. The failure to reference Graeber and Wengrow’s monumental The Dawn of Everything (2021) seems like a significant lapse considering the amount of popular attention this work has received. It is easier to excuse overlooking article length contributions such as Michael Givens’s important work on conviviality in Cyprus, which draws upon Ivan Illich to show how mutualism extends beyond human agents and into the material world. Within the discipline of archaeology, Daniel Eddisford and Colleen Morgan’s effort to demonstrate how single context recording practice already evince anarchist praxis (JCA [2019]) or James Flexner’s calls for degrowth in archaeology (AD [2021]). Recognizing the recent contributions of these scholars, among others, embraces the immediacy of mutualism that is central to its transformative potential in the discipline.  

That said, there is much to commend in this book. By understanding mutualism both as a discourse within a particular historical and intellectual context and as practice, we are reminded that alternatives exist to narratives that present the present as the inevitable culmination of the past. The inevitability of these narratives often serves to justify claims that there are no alternatives in the present.