Engendered and Feminist Archaeologies of the Recent and Documented Pasts

Abstract

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.

Much More than Gender

“…During the last ten years a similar set of reservations and shift in commitments is also evident in North American archaeology, as attested to by archaeologists who reiterate the need to rejuvenate feminist theoretical perspectives and a feminist engagement in/with archaeology (Conkey and Gero 1997;Conkey 2003;Franklin 2001;Geller and Stockett 2006;Hill 1998;Hays-Gilpin 2000;Meskell 1999;Wilkie and Hayes 2006;Spencer-Wood 2001). Anglo-American gender archaeology is a source of inspiration for much Scandinavian feminist archaeology and often also functions as an 'international' reference point, with the power to significantly influence Scandinavian archaeology.…”

“…For example, it does not mean using only feminist theory, but rather opens up the possibility of using feminist perspectives to interrogate and challenge other theories, whether they are Marxist, constructivist, post-colonial, ecological, Darwinian or any other of the theories used in archaeological analyses and interpretations. We can see this being done by the archaeologists who contribute to this special issue as well as in the "feminist sensibilities" that Wilkie and Hayes (2006) bring to bear in engaging global historical archaeologies, in the emphasis on difference in the third wave feminist challenge of Meskell (1999) to more traditional feminist archaeologies, and in the demand of Franklin (2001) that archaeologists to take up the challenge of Black feminist critical perspectives. Perhaps it is time to recognize that doing archaeology as a feminist is as diverse, productive, and rewarding as contemporary feminisms.…”

New Directions in Bioarchaeology: Recent Contributions to the Study of Human Social Identities

“…From its inception in the 1980s, scholars critiqued androcentrism in archaeological practice and rectified the ''invisibility'' of women in the archaeological record (Brumfiel 1992;Conkey and Spector 1984;Gero and Conkey 1991). As the field has grown and matured, archaeological approaches to gender have become more nuanced by utilizing a third-wave feminist agenda, either implicitly or explicitly, that incorporates age, race, and ethnic identities Meskell 2001;Wilkie and Howlett Hayes 2006;Wylie 1991). In addition, some recent approaches to sex and gender have incorporated the social science literature on queer theory, which destabilizes the categories of both sex and gender, challenges the dichotomy of biological female or male, and provides a more inclusive view of biological sex and sexuality (e.g., Butler 1993Butler , 1999.…”

The Archaeology of Sylvester Manor

“…Certainly this is not a radical or new idea, as the consideration of gender relations has become more commonplace in historical archaeology (Voss 2006;Wilkie and Hayes 2006). Interethnic marriage is well documented for the Spanish colonial period in the Americas, when the development of an extreme degree of racial consciousness resulted in multiple specifically named categories of "blood mixture" (Deagan 1983(Deagan , 2003.…”