Mapping a Future: Archaeology, Feminism, and Scientific Practice

Abstract

Drawing on work in science studies, I argue for the importance of fieldwork and research practices when considering the relative significance of feminism within archaeology. Fieldwork, often presented as the unifying hallmark of all of anthropology, has a different resonance in archaeology at the level of material practice and specific techniques. In order to understand the relationship between archaeology and feminism we need to investigate methods, methodology, and interpretations of the material record simultaneously. Examining one practice, that of map making, I suggest venues amenable to feminist insights.

THE CREATION OF GENDER BIAS IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS: Recontextualizing Archaeological and Archival Collections from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

“…Wylie's equity critiques were directed at the “substantial and largely independent body of literature concerning the demography, institutional structures, funding sources, training, and employment patterns that shape archeology” (1997, 83). Such feminist analyses can and often have been used to document patterns of differential advancement in relationship to support and training for women in archaeology (e.g., Claasen ; Conkey ; Conkey and Gero ; Du Cros and Smith ; Irwin‐Williams ; Moser ; Tomášková ; Walde and Willows ; Wilkie and Hayes ; Wright ). Studies that focus on these patterns can also be used as a basis for understanding how the content of knowledge in archaeology has been shaped (Wylie , 83).…”

Personal, Political, Pedagogic: Challenging the Binary Bind in Archaeological Teaching, Learning and Fieldwork

“…Feminist pedagogy in archaeology has been particularly vibrant in pursuing these themes 2 , through exploring the power of different and critical approaches to teaching and learning and how they subvert gender norms, and in critically examining the production of student identities in the present as well as exploring new ways to reconsider the production of the past (Arnold 2005 ; Conkey and Tringham 1996 ; Croucher et al 2014 ; Hendon 2006 ; Moser 2007 ; Perry 2004 ; Romanowicz and Wright 1996 ; Tomásková, 2007 ; Wright 1996 ; Wylie 2007 ). A smaller number of authors have considered other areas of diversity, such as ethnicity and disability, and this work has taken a different approach, focusing more on practical measures and arguing that we should change our disciplinary expectations and cultures when it comes to training students.…”

Building a Digital Park: Recontextualising Lived Experiences at Towneley Park, Burnley

“…This static landscape is therefore linked through time, with places or routes connecting across layers of memory that the participants have made in the park (Nora 1989;Smith 2006). These subjective links are inadequately expressed on a conventional two-dimensional map which cannot convey the poetry of movement, the emotions attached to a place or the multiple ways of reading and writing landscapes (de Certeau 1988;Tomášková 2007;Bidwell & Winschiers-Theophilus 2012). The participants' use of the park space does not generate and revisit associations in a linear fashion like the branch of a tree, but instead consists in a complex network of experiences and memories.…”