Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Breaking and Entering the Ecosystem—Gender, Class, and Faction Steal the Show

Brumfiel, Elizabeth M.

doi:10.1525/aa.1992.94.3.02a00020

Cited by 331 publications

(159 citation statements)

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“…As a way of overcoming the biases of firstwave feminists, who focused primarily on the importance of women in the archaeological record, third-wave feminism positioned gender in relation to other identity markers such as age, ethnicity, class, inequality, and sexuality (BRUMFIEL, 1992;MESKELL, 2002:283).…”

Section: Identity Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such large scales of analysis tend to distort changes resulting from the meaningful actions and ideas of agents and social actors at the scale of daily life, leading to an overestimation of the impact of external forces of change in comparison to the ground-level internal forces. Archaeology's historical reliance on systemic analysis has led to the invisibility of gender and minority groups for these same reasons (BRUMFIEL, 1992).…”

Section: Identity Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In appreciating the praxis of ethnicity, archaeologists can potentially identify not only ethnicity in historical and prehistorical contexts but also other embodiments of identity such as gender, social status, and class, to name a few. Explorations of identity must be selfaware, because it has been shown that the identity of the modern majority is often reflected in interpretations of researchers who have not taken steps to critique their underlying assumptions and culturally specific biases (BRUMFIEL, 1992;CONKEY, 2007;CONKEY & GERO, 1997;GILCHRIST, 1999;JONES, 2007). Most archaeologists today operate in societies that have emerged from historically androcentric-misogynistic empires, with traditions of writing that reflect the values of these empires.…”

Section: Final Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The construction and negotiation of multifaceted identities is one of the defining universal characteristics of humans (VARIEN & POTTER, 2008:15) and, arguably, the most important if material culture is taken as the primary indicator of identity maintenance in the past. Identities are composed of situationally and temporally fluid embodiments of culturally unstable elements of personhood, such as ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and faction, to name a few (BRUMFIEL, 1992). These elements vary in visibility depending upon: the scale of the observation; the perspective of the observer; and most importantly, the context of the archaeological record that is being analyzed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The feminist critique

Neubauer

Schaefer

2017

rsab

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We discuss the important role of the feminist critique in bringing awareness to gender, childhood, and identity research, and in giving voice to the perspectives of underrepresented groups. As a case study of ancient social lives and gender, we discuss a range of Marajoara identity markers interpreted through the study of ceramic tangas (female pubic coverings) from Marajó Island in the Brazilian Amazon (A.D. 400-1400). There, tangas were made and used by women as a material representation of social position, gender, and individual identity. We argue that identity constitutes a fundamentally important aspect of archaeological research, and that the strongest case studies in identity are those that encompass a variety of gendered inferences to understand social lives of the past. Palavras-chave: Feminist theory and archaeology; Gender and identity studies; Marajoara Ceramic Tangas. RESUMONeste artigo, discutimos o importante papel da crítica feminista na conscientização de pesquisas relacionadas aos estudos de gênero, infância e identidade, e em vocalizar as perspectivas de grupos pouco representados. Como um estudo de caso sobre gênero e vidas sociais antigas, discutimos uma série de marcadores de identidade Marajoara interpretados através do estudo das tangas cerâmicas (coberturas púbicas femininas) na Ilha de Marajó, na Amazônia brasileira (400-1400 A.D.). Estes artefatos foram feitos e usados por mulheres como uma representação material de posição social, gênero e identidade individual. Argumentamos que identidade constitui um aspecto importante e fundamental na pesquisa arqueológica, e que seus mais sólidos estudos de caso constituem aqueles que abrangem uma variedade de inferências sobre gênero para compreender as vidas sociais no passado.

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Section: Identity Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Identity Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Final Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The feminist critique

Neubauer

Schaefer

2017

rsab

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“…5). Of course, such an emphasis on bounded and internally homogeneous social wholes was by no means exclusive to culture-historic archaeology: it was also a hallmark of much processual archaeology (Brumfiel 1992).…”

Section: Scales and Units Of Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Gene-flows and social processes: The potential of genetics and archaeology

Thomas

2006

Doc. praeh.

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Scales and units of analysisOver the past forty years, a fascinating dialogue has been developing between archaeology and genetics, specifically in relation to the question of the dispersal of domesticated plants and animals into Europe and its relationship with the movements of human populations. This debate has often been marked by a degree of mutual confusion, owing largely to the different temporal and spatial scales at which the two disciplines operate, and the different questions that they address (Brown and Pluciennik 2001. 101). While genetics generally concerns itself with the global or continental scale, archaeology is often more focused on the regional and the local, with the result that phenomena that are described at different levels of magnitude may appear to contradict each other. Some common ground is now beginning to emerge, but from an archaeological point of view it is especially interesting to ask whether the finegrained patterns that we think we can discern in the evidence can be accommodated by the broader sweep of the genetic information, or whether there is a degree of dissonance between the two, whose investigation might prove fruitful.We are indebted to Albert Ammerman and Luca Cavalli-Sforza (1971;1973) for initially stimulating debate with their discussion of the expansion of agriculture into Europe through demic diffusion, developed in the first instance in relation to radiocarbon dates from Neolithic sites, and later used as a means of explaining the distribution of genetic markers across the continent. The model of farming communities gradually expanding as their population rose, fuelled by the productivity and reliability of their subsistence base was explicitly differentiated from migrationary arguments, in which communi-

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Living and Working at Home: The Social Archaeology of Household Production and Social Relations

Hendon¹

2007

A Companion to Social Archaeology

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Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Breaking and Entering the Ecosystem—Gender, Class, and Faction Steal the Show

Abstract: This article was presented as the third annual Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 90th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 22, 1991, in Chicago, Illinois.

Cited by 331 publications

References 50 publications

The feminist critique

The feminist critique

Gene-flows and social processes: The potential of genetics and archaeology

Living and Working at Home: The Social Archaeology of Household Production and Social Relations

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