Programming without pointers is essentially programming without run-time identities used in aliasing; i.e. programming with values. You can program with values, make it a unique ID or include one, copy that around, and you are essentially back to programming with pointers again (this happens in functional languages a lot, but they don't like to talk about it).

OO languages like to think of everything as an object, FP languages like to think of everything as a value, but in reality you often need both in most applications, and an extreme bias one way or the other isn't useful.