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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology.In 1987, a small number of historical archaeologists issued a call for archaeologists to embrace the teachings of critical theory so that their research could be used to challenge societal structures of inequality. Although community partnering, an outgrowth of critical theory, has become increasingly important to archaeological practice, a true archaeological "praxis" has yet to be achieved. Possible reasons for this include a decontextualization of critical theory from its historical origin, the subsequent reification of capitalism in critical research, and the obscuring of agency in critical interpretations because of an emphasis on topdown or macroscale models of society. We suggest that true praxis can be achieved in historical archaeology through a reconceptualization of the relationship between individuals and society and through a structuring of archaeological research that seeks to create a discursive relationship between past and present peoples and between researchers and community partners. We present a critically informed archaeological case study from Louisiana to demonstrate how such a dialogue can lead to emanicipatory knowledge.l a u r i e a .

Engendered and feminist archaeologies in historical archaeology have developed in complementary ways to those in nonhistorical archaeologies but with distinct methodological issues and sources of data. This article discusses the development of engendered and feminist archaeologies that use textual sources, the continuing themes that characterize this body of work, and the state of the field today. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions for practitioners to pursue.