The annual Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference takes place on Monday 15th - Wednesday 17th December 2008 at the Univeristy of Southampton. We have had our session proposal accepted and invite papers accordingly, please see below. For further details regarding TAG refer to http://www.tagconference.org/2008
Women and Archaeology: Women of the past, present and future (BWA)
Two decades ago the role of women in the past and present was openly debated. Feminist approaches were welcomed and as a result both attitudes to women, and access for women, altered. However, despite women archaeology undergraduates out-numbering men for much of the last 15 years, women are still poorly represented within higher positions in the discipline at both academic and commercial levels. Furthermore, a lack of attention to these dialogues has led to, in some quarters, a renewed interest in interpretations of women in the past as being passive to a dominant male hierarchy. Indeed, the backlash against gendered approaches in the 1980s and 1990s has now resulted in a widespread reluctance to raise feminism as a still relevant topic for interpretation. This session intends to reopen these debates.
We therefore invite papers that focus on archaeological interpretations and on current (political) issues in the discipline, sponsored by British Women Archaeologists (http://britishwomenarchaeologists.org.uk). This newly formed group supports women in the discipline at all levels and proposes to maintain a focus on the challenges that continue to face women today through positive action and providing solutions. This is particularly relevant in light of the 2006 Gender Equality Act which requires public authorities to promote gender equality and eliminate sex discrimination. Results of our 2008 national survey will be presented during this session; surveys can still be completed until late October for inclusion in our statistics, details on our website.
Abstracts received so far include:
Title : Women as slaves or Xenia the warrior princess -- gender stereotypes in archaeological interpretations
Susanne Hakenbeck (University of Cambridge)
Abstract :
In the past two decades, gender archaeology has developed into a well-established and prolific sub-field of archaeology. Gender archaeology explicitly criticises gendered interpretations of the past that are based on essentialist ideas about men and women. Yet such critiques seem to have had only a limited effect on areas of research that are not designated as being specifically ‘about gender’. In many areas of research, gender roles are either not discussed at all, or conventional gender stereotypes are uncritically perpetuated. Images of men as active, aggressive and as occupying the public sphere and of women as passive and house-bound still underlie many narratives of the past. This is problematic not only because of an evident absence of critical thought about gender, but – more importantly – because the use of such stereotypes as ‘truths’ about societies in the past displays a fundamental weakness in archaeological reasoning. Using the example of conflicting interpretations of gender-specific mobility in early-medieval central Europe, I will discuss the reasons for and deeper implications of using gender stereotypes in archaeological interpretation.
Title : Feminine velour: women's agency in the down town Bam socioeconomic status. Case of study: Bam(SE Iran) contemporary disastrous layers, Maskanies house
Maryam Dezhamkhooy (University of Tehran)
Abstract :
There are lots of explanations defining the concept of Agency. In most of these concepts the stress is on decision making, choice and intention of individual act as knowledgeable social actors (agent). In this approach to agency the stress is on relative relationships between power (in different scales) and agency of individuals. In some other worlds power facilitizes the agency. This article has ordered in the framework of contemporary material culture of Bam contemporary disastrous layers. The city of Bam is located in Kerman province, south eastern Iran. In the winter of 2003 the city of Bam, awfully ruined in cause of an earthquake, more than half of city residents were killed by the disaster and more than 80% of city domestic architecture was wholly damaged.
In the summer of 2008, five years after the earthquake, a contemporary archaeology project was conducted in the ruins of Bam. Six destroyed houses were excavated during the project. This article is the result of this research based on Agency theories to endorse the different form of low status women agencies represented in material culture. Furthermore, the intention of each person and her representation during the life hood has been recognized, too. The basic question in this article is: In subordinate individuals and groups whom prosperous lowest scales of power, HOW DOES AGENCY REPRESENT?
This research studies the forms of "representation of women's agency and self expression" in the down town Bam status. Sexuality and rank as two important indicators which ascertain individual status in social order, play special role in discourse of agency (in the taste of any essentialism) and forms of its representation. This research is based on intentional schemes proportional to the preexisting social structures of context, in the direction self representation of low class women as groups whom have restricted choices. How a woman from a socio-economic low status reacts to her being ignored? And how she represents herself in material culture? Strategic and intentional use of cultural material in sake of reaching individuality and self expression "a woman reference" to social construction is one of the appearances of agency. In this case "home space "in which the social identity of women especially in low class "forms, plays a very basic role.
Title : Assessing the significance of women in Ancient India through the Dharmasastras Corpus: a textual analysis of P.V. Kane's A History of the Dharmasastras
Ajay Pratap (Dept. of History, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India)
Abstract :
It cannot be denied that there are several passages in the Dharmasastras (See Kane, 1992, Vol. 1-5) where there are explicit references to women that lead us to some knowledge of their role and status in ancient Indian society. However, most familiar with this text would know that the allusions to women, in this text, are such that these must be analysed at several levels. The age of the Dharmasastras, unfold largely a rural society, such that the prescriptions given in the corpus, it would seem, are befitting - for women, in the folds of rural life. It is another matter, why for feminist interpretation, in India, the prescriptions of the Dharmasastras have been regarded as eternal (as in irrevocable), and male-biased, at that. Recent workers in feminist studies argue that we must study these texts with the aim to understand the actual status accorded to women as enshrined in these texts and not on a part or partial reading of such texts (Chandrakala Padia Pers. Comm...). It, is therefore, important, to assess in this light what the Dharmasasatras say about women. In any case, from a historian’s point of view, there are several preliminary tests a historical text or corpus must pass before we may assess them for one significance or another. With citations from the concerned volumes (1-5) of P.V. Kane's A History of the Dharmasatras, this paper tries to utilize this text, for such benefits, as we desire, with regard to understanding the status of women in ancient India.
Title: Failing Women or Women Failing? Discussing women in British Archaeology today.
Anne Teather (University of Sheffield)
Abstract:
There are a lot more women in Archaeology now then ever before and yet women’s experiences in their places of study or work can often be negatively influenced by attitudes around them. Our survey results suggest that this, together with a lack of female role models, can influence women’s career decisions from as early as their undergraduate degree. Moreover, staff retention within the industry of archaeology is poor, with over 88% of archaeologists being under 49 years of age. This paper discusses the BWA survey results of 2008 together with a synthesis of the IFA’s surveys published in 1992, 1999, 2003 and 2008. It will be proposed that against a rapidly changing society of inclusivity of flexible working, Archaeology has been left behind as largely a discipline in stasis; a monument to inflexible working and still proportionately very male dominated.
