processuality

Processuality refers to the quality or orientation of phenomena as fundamentally process-based, emphasizing change, transformation, and sequences of events rather than static states. It is a term used across disciplines to describe approaches that foreground mechanisms, dynamics, and relational effects in the formation of outcomes.

In archaeology, processuality is often associated with processual or New Archaeology, which emerged in the 1960s. This perspective seeks to explain cultural change through general processes such as subsistence practices, technology, exchange, and environmental interaction. It emphasizes systematic data collection, hypothesis testing, and the search for explanations that can apply beyond a single site or culture, often adopting quantitative methods and models.

In philosophy, processuality relates to process philosophy, notably associated with thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead. Here, reality is viewed as constituted by processes and events and their interrelations rather than by enduring substances. Time, becoming, and relationality are central concepts, and some contemporary theories extend these ideas to social and cognitive domains, treating the social world as an ongoing production.

In social theory and anthropology, processual approaches highlight networks, distributed agency, and the idea that social life is continually produced through interactions and transactions. They are often contrasted with more static or agent-centered models, offering tools for analyzing change over time and across contexts.

Critiques from post-processual and interpretive perspectives argue that processual approaches can underplay meaning, symbolism, power, and local particularities. Proponents counter that processuality provides a rigorous, comparative framework for understanding change, while acknowledging its limitations. Overall, processuality denotes a stance that prioritizes processes, transformations, and dynamic relations in explaining phenomena.