2015 Characterising Roman artefacts for investigating gendered practices in contexts without sexed bodies, American Journal of Archaeology 119.1 (open-access ‘Forum’ article) (DOI: 10.3764/aja.119.1.0103) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Characterizing Roman Artifacts to Investigate Gendered Practices in Contexts Without Sexed Bodies
American Journal of Archaeology, 2015
This article concerns the characterization of Roman artifacts so that they can play a greater role in gendered approaches to Roman sites-sites that constitute lived spaces but lack actual references to sexed bodies. It commences with a brief discussion on gendered approaches in the two main strands of Roman archaeology-classical and provincial. Within the differing frameworks of the wider disciplines of classics and archaeology, both strands focus on contexts with sexed bodies-burials, figurative representation, and inscriptions. The discussion serves as a background for more integrated and more interrogative approaches to relationships between Roman artifacts and gendered practices, approaches that aim to develop interpretative tools for investigating social practice in contexts where no representational or biologically sexed bodies are evident. Three types of artifacts-brooches, glass bottles, and needles-are used to demonstrate how differing degrees of gender associations of artifacts and artifact assemblages can provide insights into gender relationships in settlement contexts. These insights in turn contribute to better understandings of gendered sociospatial practices across the Roman world.* * I am grateful to Carol van Driel-Murray, Margarita Díaz Andreu, Katherine Huntley, Daan van Helden, Tom Derrick, and the anonymous reviewers for the AJA for their comments on drafts of this article. Any errors or misunderstandings are my own. I would also like to thank Debbie Miles-Williams for producing the figures.
The archaeology of sex and gender
The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology, ed. B. Cunliffe, C. Gosden and R. Joyce, OUP, 1029-47, 2009
Over the past twenty years, the themes of sex and gender have emerged as central concerns to archaeology internationally. The interrogation of gendered concepts and terminology began with the feminist critique of archaeology in the 1980s, and has continued in the more pluralistic archaeologies of gender that have characterized the past decade. Increasingly, archaeological considerations of gender address intersections with other aspects of social identity, such as age, class, sexuality and ethnicity, or are integrated in studies of embodiment. The key definitions and positions of earlier feminist archaeology have been challenged and reshaped, as the reflexive tradition of feminist research regularly remakes itself. Running in parallel with the development of gender archaeology, this period has also seen more critical attention to the definition of sex. The fields of bioarchaeology and burial archaeology have been concerned with achieving more rigorous identifications of sex in ancient human remains, while the study of human evolution has addressed the role of sexual selection in the origins of gendered behaviour.
This essay will attempt to discuss the archaeological framework questioning the function played by gender in past societies and its influence in shaping contemporary ideologies on sex differences and gender roles. Being gender a cultural construct, it may be misleading to assume it always had the same implications. Different cultures had indeed considerably different understandings of gender categories and followed therefore disparate patterns in terms of gender relation arrangements. However, past societies are no longer here cavorting the earth for us to analyse and have a face-to-face discourse about their diverse approaches to social differences and this is where archaeology comes into play. For instance, by looking at the archaeological data it is possible to notice that gender interplays were often clearly displayed by means of material culture such as individual costumes, iconography and art, or in circumstances that involved burial activities (Sørensen, 2000: 8). To this extent, archaeology is a precious resource in order to broaden our picture of sex and gender interpretation in that “material culture becomes partner in the structuring of social relations” (Sørensen, 2000: 9). Insofar as it can be ascertained, material culture mirrors the way in which a particular society was organized and sheds therefore a light upon its social relations. This ideological framework weas enacted by the members of society who passed it on the subsequent generations through objects and symbols, carriers of and imbued with cultural meaning. Hence, material culture “serves as a bridge” (Sørensen, 2000: 9), it underpins the present theoretical discourse surrounding the legitimization of a gendered critique of the past with empirical and tangible objects. Especially when studying past non-literate societies, the artefacts unearthed in proximity of female or male skeletons can recount the distinct tasks carried out by the former and the latter; nonetheless, sex and gender differences ought to be critically considered also in terms of health, nutrition, violence, and labour distinctions (Hays-Gilpin and Whitley, 1998: 4). It is of the utmost importance to systematically discern these factors, and once a judicious observation has been made, they must be recorded accordingly rather than just taken for granted in line with gendered stereotypes (Hays-Gilpin and Whitley, 1998: 5), for archaeology can offer a “historical perspective on the social construction and changing nature and forms of ʻdifferenceʼ” (Conkey, 1993: 12).
2012
Almost thirty years have passed since gender studies entered archaeological discourse in earnest. What is the current status of gender research? One of the aims of this book is to contribute to answer this and other related questions. Another is to shed some light on the pasts and possible futures of gender research. Contributions deal with publications statistics in journals over the last thirty years, neo-realist discussions of Mayan body-politic, intersectional analyses of current Swedish museum exhibitions and Viking Period bos brooches, masculinities in practice at a cultural heritage site, Viking period bodily abilities and disabilities and experiments regarding how once-lived bodies and lives may be materialized.
2013
This major new textbook explores the relations between gender and archaeology, providing an innovative and important account of how material culture is used in the construction of gender. Throughout this lively and accessible text, Sorensen engages with the question of how gender is materially constituted, and examines the intersection of social and material concerns from the Palaeolithic Age to the present day. Part One discusses a range of important general issues, beginning with an overview of the recent role of gender and gender relations in our appropriation of past societies. After introducing the debate about feminist or gender archaeology, Sorensen examines archaeology's concern with the sex/gender distinction, the nature of negotiation, and feminist epistemological claims in relation to archaeology. In Part Two, the author focuses on the materiality of gender, exploring it through case studies ranging from prehistory to contemporary society. Food, dress, space and conta...
Beyond the Binary: An Archaeological Perspective on Gender Identity
Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2018
This article is intended to provide a brief introduction to, and overview of, gender archaeology, including its history and terminology. I will present the common methods of identifying gender using evidence from settlements, burials, and ethnographic research to provide context for the discussion of gender variance. Then, I will compare the evidence of socially acceptable gender variance to unacceptable gender variance, drawing on methods and theories previously discussed. Finally, I will review the difficulties faced in the field and potential developments that could provide a greater insight into the gender identities of the past.
2021
Critical feminist Posthumanism provides novel ways of dealing with bodies as material-discursive phenomena. As such, bodies come about, change and dissolve by re-workings of entangled relations. Such relationships are making human bodies more-than-human. Bodies can be understood as full of excesses—that will not be captured by, for example, gender or age categories alone—albeit occasionally materially shaped by them. Examples of such excessive relations are captured by DNA analysis or various isotope analyses—where diet as well as geological habitat gets imprinted into the body and become a part of the personhood—and can be discussed as the landscape within. This paper deals with some misunderstandings around Posthumanism, but also with how critical posthumanist feminist theory can breathe new life into archaeological gender studies and thereby also forge new relationships with the archaeological sciences.