(De)queering Hatshepsut: Binary Bind in Archaeology of Egypt and Kingship Beyond the Corporeal

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

“…We must allow ambiguity and fluidity, but at the same time be careful what we mean by such designations. What appears ambiguous through the lens of the binary binds might not have been so in the past (Matić 2016). Likewise, acknowledgment that gender can be fluid and variable throughout the life course does not mean that identity is not regulated in accordance with norms and practices that include and exclude certain kinds of bodies and persons, even when they transcend a binary system.…”

“…A focus on embodied experience has dislodged the body as a neutral ontological fact, orienting inquiry to performative engagement, relational intersections, and "lived lives" throughout the life course (Alberti 2001(Alberti , 2005Belcher 2016;Borić and Robb 2008;Fuglestvedt 2014;Geller 2009a;Hamilakis et al 2002;Joyce 2000Joyce , 2004Joyce , 2005Joyce , 2008Meskell1996;Meskell and Joyce 2003;Rebay-Salisbury et al 2010;Sofaer 2006). Case studies have indicated that the anatomical configuration of the body does not guarantee a trajectory toward man/woman as either/or (Joyce 2008;Yates 1993), highlighting the contextual emergence of bodily difference, ability, and corporeal boundaries (Arwill-Nordbladh 2012;Matić 2016;Meskell and Joyce 2003) and disrupting the ontological stability of a naked "sexed" body in the absence of performative deployment (Alberti 2005).…”

“…A focus on procreative anatomy has tended to align this normal on a heterosexual, or heteronormative, correspondence between binary sex, two genders, and opposite-sex sexual desire (Dowson 2000b(Dowson , 2009aGeller 2008). Queer theory (e.g., Butler 1990Butler , 1993de Lauretis1991;Giffney 2009;Halperin 1995;Jagose 1996;Sedgwick 1990) and archaeologies of sexuality Voss 2008;Voss and Casella 2012) have offered positionalities counter to the hegemony of the binary normative, resisting the heterosexual naturalization of past sexual practice (e.g., Weismantel 2004) as well as the stabilization of essentialist subjects-i.e., the binary and others (Alberti 2013;Blackmore 2011;Dowson 2000a;Croucher 2005;Cobb2005;Geller 2008Geller , 2009aJensen 2007;Marshall 2000Marshall , 2013Matić 2012Matić , 2016Moral 2016;Schmidt 2002;Terendy et al 2009;Weismantel 2013). Such research has stressed the variety of possibilities and loci of significance for the embodiment of difference, and a variety of ways that sex, the body, and gender can be related in the constitution and valuing of personhood.…”

“…Within-category variability does not necessarily make one less of a man or woman, in either a "deviant" or "categorical" sense (Fuglestvedt 2014), nor does statistical aberration from the bimodal inherently signal cultural deviance or social abjection (Alberti 2013: 93;Klein 2001: 184;Voss2005: 67). Such insights highlight the need to continually revise and assess sex and gender categories in context, since the binary binds do not only predetermine what counts as standard, but also regulate the type and range of variability in ways that might reaffirm the logic of heteronormativity (Matić 2016;Moral 2016).…”

“…What is at issue, then, is not only the constitution of sex and gender, nor the number of sex, gender, or sexuality categories. Also at stake is the circumscription of the ontologies of personhood and our means to recognize what kinds of bodies and identities come into existence, in the past and the present (Cobb and Croucher 2016;Matić 2016;Moral 2016).…”