“Seek and you Shall Find.” How the Analysis of Gendered Patterns in Archaeology can Create False Binaries: a Case Study from Durankulak

Stratton, Susan

doi:10.1007/s10816-016-9290-2

Cited by 21 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…They also made choices about characteristics they valued and those less important. Gender was an important master status in the eyes of the surviving family members; however, the choice of engraving gender on the stone is informative about the society of the deceased (Stratton 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Gender on the Frontier: 19th-Century Crooked Creek Cemetery

Schroer

Hine²

2017

Genealogy

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This qualitative case study highlights the work of university students who participated in a service learning component of a sociological research methods course. Their complete documentation and analysis of all 477 gravestones in the abandoned Crooked Creek cemetery provide a cultural snapshot of life in the Western frontier in the 1800s. In contrast to existing literature on the analysis of gender indicators on gravestones, this study finds significant evidence that gender was related to social identity and that indicators of master status exist for both women and men. Furthermore, the significant role of women in the development of a pioneer village is represented in the epitaphs chosen by a woman's surviving family members. The findings attempt to dispel assumptions that the use of terms such as "wife" and "mother" on gravestones of the period exemplified the lower status of women in relation to men. Implications for genealogical research include rethinking the way researchers consider the role of wife and mother to write more historically situated narratives of family and community histories.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Gender on the Frontier: 19th-Century Crooked Creek Cemetery

Schroer

Hine²

2017

Genealogy

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“…In mortuary and osteoarchaeological contexts, analytical focus has unsettled the confinement of gender to a masculine/feminine dyad, calling attention to the diversity of possible social configurations as well as the historicity of sex (Arnold 2002(Arnold , 2006(Arnold , 2016Arnold and Wicker2001a;Claassen 1992b;Geller 2005Geller , 2008Geller , 2009aHollimon 2011;Joyce 2008;Sofaer 2006Sofaer ,2013. Less essentialist approaches to material culture and identity have come into practice, pointing out that sex and gender might not have been the most prominent dimensions structuring the meaning of grave inclusions or burial attributes (Arnold 2016;Crass 2001;Jordan 2016;Stratton 2016;Weglian 2001: 142-153). Geller's (2005Geller's ( , 2008Geller's ( , 2009a) and Sofaer's (2006) work at the interface of osteology and interpretive archaeology has been influential for resisting the localization of sex or gender in stable metrics.…”

Section: Destabilizing the Binary Binds: Approaches To Differencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The heuristic utility of a commitment to biological:social externality between sex and gender remains a site of contestation, particularly regarding the body's materiality and its status at the interface between the skeleton and social identity. While bioarchaeological approaches have acknowledged the contingence of the body and the significance of historical context for understanding its points of significance, several researchers (Arnold 2006: 157;Gowland and Thompson 2013: 21, 113;Matić 2012: 6;Voss 2005: 60, 71;Sofaer 2006Sofaer : 96, 2013Stockett and Geller 2006: 10) have commented on the tendency of mortuary archaeologists and osteologists to maintain the physical:social divide of the sex/gender system (e.g., Arnold 2002Arnold ,2016Sofaer 2006;Stratton 2016). This is often due to the centrality of the material remains of the skeleton in these analyses.…”

Section: Material:discursive Tensions In Category-the Constitution Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Continued reliance on binary starting points has tended to direct interpretation around an assumed coherence of either/or masculine and feminine categories (discussed by Fuglestvedt 2014; Joyce 2008). Despite the acknowledged caveat that reproductive anatomy might not provide the most salient reference point for social identity, archaeological methods tend to orient a social concept of gender around sex dichotomies defined along anatomically dimorphic lines (Sofaer 2006: 101-105;Stratton 2016). A common result of this practice is the elision or dismissal of "unsexable" skeletons (Stratton2016) and "neutral" burials-i.e., those that do not easily sort into either/or masculine and feminine patterns of grave-good distribution (Arnold 2006: 152)-from examinations of gender configurations in mortuary contexts.…”

Section: Normative:non-normative Tensions In Practice-the Containmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This association assigns sex to either/or essentialized gender identities, which are often expected to accord with modern Western ideologies (Doucette 2001;Weglian 2001). The uncritical adoption of these stereotypes has, in many cases, resulted in reductive correlations between objects, the body, and social identity, ignoring the destabilizing potential of the material evidence in favor of normative and broad categorical constructs (Jordan 2016;Stratton 2016); unexpected configurations of grave goods and osteological sex have often been explained away in order to reaffirm known gender ideologies (Arnold 1991(Arnold , 2012(Arnold , 2016Díaz-Andreu 2005: 38). Doucette (2001), for example, evaluating past scholarship on atlatl burials at two Archaic-period sites in the eastern Woodlands of North America, demonstrates how past interpretations of atlatls "bound" artifacts and roles to a priori expectations of gender and gendered spheres of action.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Introduction to “Binary Binds”: Deconstructing Sex and Gender Dichotomies in Archaeological Practice

Ghisleni

Jordan

Fioccoprile

2016

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Gender archaeology has made significant strides toward deconstructing the hegemony of binary categorizations. Challenging dichotomies such as man/woman, sex/gender, and biology/culture, approaches informed by poststructuralist, feminist, and queer theories have moved beyond essentialist and universalist identity constructs to more nuanced configurations. Despite the theoretical emphasis on context, multiplicity, and fluidity, binary starting points continue to streamline the spectrum of variability that is recognized, often reproducing normative assumptions in the evidence. The contributors to this special issue confront how sex, gender, and sexuality categories condition analytical visibility, aiming to develop approaches that respond to the complexity of theory in archaeological practice. The papers push the ontological and epistemological boundaries of bodies, personhood, and archaeological possibility, challenging a priori assumptions that contain how sex, gender, and sexuality categories are constituted and related to each other. Foregrounding intersectional approaches that engage with ambiguity, variability, and difference, this special issue seeks to "de-contain" categories, assumptions, and practices from "binding" our analytical gaze toward only certain kinds of persons and knowledges, in interpretations of the past and practices in the present.The interpretation of sex and gender in archaeology has long been contained by the social polarity of "man" and "woman" as well as the confinement of sex in biology and gender in culture (Joyce 2008;Sofaer 2006;Yates 1993)-what we term the "binary binds." The aim of this special issue is to critically engage with and move beyond the limitations of sex and gender dichotomies in archaeological narratives, with an emphasis on developing approaches that respond to the complexity of theory in practices. The 2 articles emerged from the Archaeology and Gender in Europe 1 (Dommasnes and Montón-Subías 2012: 374, 382) sponsored session at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Istanbul, Turkey. Contributors were challenged to rethink the analytical categories that frame archaeological reconstructions of sex, gender, and sexuality, exploring how binary starting points and methodological practices condition and constrain interpretations of sex and gender variability.We recognize that a call to critically interrogate sex and gender dichotomies is not new. The binary binds and their hierarchical confinement of biological and social difference have been loci of contestation since the emergence of gender as an analytical category in archaeology (e.g., Claassen ). In the past three decades, gender archaeology has made significant strides toward deconstructing the imperatives of these dichotomies, informed by poststructuralist, feminist, and queer

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Her Mirror, His Sword: Unbinding Binary Gender and Sex Assumptions in Iron Age British Mortuary Traditions

Jordan

2016

J Archaeol Method Theory

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“Seek and you Shall Find.” How the Analysis of Gendered Patterns in Archaeology can Create False Binaries: a Case Study from Durankulak

Cited by 21 publications

References 12 publications

Investigating Gender on the Frontier: 19th-Century Crooked Creek Cemetery

Investigating Gender on the Frontier: 19th-Century Crooked Creek Cemetery

Introduction to “Binary Binds”: Deconstructing Sex and Gender Dichotomies in Archaeological Practice

Her Mirror, His Sword: Unbinding Binary Gender and Sex Assumptions in Iron Age British Mortuary Traditions

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