Images of power and contradiction: feminist theory and post-processual archaeology

Abstract

Archaeology, like many of the sciences, works to a masculine metaphor, the [male) archaeologist as hero explores and tames the mysteries of his [female) subject. Feminisl theory has made important criticism of positivist science on these grounds, drawing on much the same postmodern theory as 'post-processual' archaeology. How do the 'post-processuals' appear, seen in the feminist light?The character of post-processual archaeology Recent critiques of the 'new' or 'processual' archaeology have been grouped in a new orthodoxy, 'post-processual' archaeology. Although its few practitioners show some diversity and even internal criticism (as Shanks & Tilley's criticism of Hodder) there are obvious points of consensus. Post-processual archaeology is united in its criticism of positivist, functionalist, adaptational models of the past which emphasize a scientific, objective, hypothesistesting approach and would appear to limit archaeology to the analysis of technology, economy and the effects of physical and biological processes -'middle-range' theory. The post-processual critics have variously proposed Marxism, symbolic anthropology, hermeneutics, structuralism and poststructuralism -or mixtures of these -as alternatives. United in criticizing the old 'New Archaeology', post-processualists present divergent views on what the new orthodoxy is or even if it is a new orthodoxy. A replacement archaeology can be seen in the proposed 'contextual' archaeology (Hodder 1986). Shanks & Tilley (1987a propose a plurality of archaeologies. Such divergence may be inherent in their philosophical position, related primarily to poststructuralist/postmodern thought and a seeming reluctance openly to propose a new metatheory. Much post-processual work takes the form of polemical criticisms of what went before, a discourse which has created strong, polarizations in theoretical and methodologically oriented archaeology.Some common themes can be viewed as positive proposals rather than simply deconstructions. One finds a renewed emphasis on culture, and an interest in material culture as not only reflecting but also as active in constituting social relations, and thus an emphasis on the social, symbolic, ideological as well as the functional.This structuralist and poststructuralist stance relates to developments in symbolic and critical anthropology (Scholte 1988) where the social, ideological, and symbolic are not seen as epiphenomena of supposedly more basic, functional, cause-and-effect relations. One joins the functional with the social, ideological, and symbolic analyses of the mundane aspects of everyday life (Engelstad in press). The material cultural remains relating to all aspects of mundane, everyday life become important for understanding both material and non-material aspects of this life.Relatively new to archaeology is an emphasis on the individual as active rather than the passive pawn of previous adaptation-oriented archaeologies. The relationship between agency and structure, and the importance of * ANTIQUITY 65 (1991): 502-14

Feminismo, teoría y práctica de una arqueología científica

“…La arqueología feminista se realiza verdaderamente en el propio proceso de producir conocimiento científico (Conkey y Gero 1997: 430-431), y explícitamente tiende hacia la objetividad desde una perspectiva parcial y concreta, desde una posición específica que asume su subjetividad como una característica inherente al conocimiento científico (Wylie 1992(Wylie , 1994(Wylie , 1996(Wylie , 1997(Wylie , 2002Engelstad 1991), no como una práctica perversa que es necesario evitar. Por ello, el feminismo aboga por la aplicación de un razonamiento riguroso en cada paso que damos en la construcción de nuestras inferencias, haciendo modelos científicos explicativos sólidos y justificados.…”

“…Por lo tanto, la introducción del feminismo en arqueología es paralela a la del posmodernismo, pero es independiente en origen y en práctica (Engelstad 2007). De hecho los arqueólogos posprocesuales fueron tempranamente criticados por reproducir actitudes machistas (Engelstad 1991;Gilchrist 1992;Wylie 1992Wylie y 1997.…”

Identities

“…The salience of gender as an identifiable marker arrived relatively late on the theoretical scene (Conkey and Spector 1984); first through the lens of first-wave feminist theory (Claassen 1992a;Engelstad 1991;Gilchrist 1991) and followed by a number of substantive case studies outlining women's place in the past (Gero and Conkey 1991;Gibbs 1987;Gilchrist 1994). It went hand in hand with contemporary concerns over the position of women as practitioners and academics within the discipline (Claassen 1994;Claassen and Joyce 1997;Diaz-Andreu and Sørensen 1998;Dommasnes 1992;Nelson, Nelson, and Wylie 1994).…”

Gender-informed archaeology: The priority of definition, the use of analogy, and the multivariate approach

“…The questions asked, the samples chosen, and the conclusions reached by previous androcentric archaeological research have been the targets of intense criticism (Conkey and Spector, 1984;Engelstad, 1991;Wylie, 1991Wylie, , 1992b. Critical reassessments within any theoretical perspective are invaluable to archaeology; nothing within existing theoretical frameworks--whether evolutionary, Marxist, processual, or postprocessual--prevents a reexamination of these issues.…”