ABSTRACT
One definition of entanglement (Hodder 2012) is that it is the dialectic of dependence and dependency between humans and things. Dependence (and for the plural I shall use dependences) recognizes that the human use of things is enabling and productive, cognitively, psychologically, socially, and economically. I use dependence here in the sense of "reliance on." But dependence also often involves a second focus that I call dependency (and its plural dependencies). Dependency involves some form of constraint. Humans become involved in various dependencies that limit their abilities to develop, as societies or as individuals. These notions of dependence and dependency draw attention to the tensions between humans and things that lead to entrapment and the human sense of being caught up in the world. Some notions of entanglement deal with the historical dimensions of power inequalities in colonial and postcolonial settings (Thomas 1991). I generalize from these colonial aspects of entanglements to refer to the overall condition of humans in their dependence and dependency in relation to things.
