Feminist Archaeology - Feminist and Gender Archaeologies

Feminist and Gender Archaeologies

Since the early feminist critiques of archaeology, gender has gained enormous popularity within the discipline. The label “feminist” has not been embraced by most archaeologists, however. A split between gender and feminist archaeologies formed during the 1990s. Gender archaeology has become a wide umbrella, including, but not limited to, feminist work that employs queer theory, practice theory), and performance theory, among others. Many archaeologists engaged in gender research avoid the label of “feminist,” largely due to the perceived negative connotations of the word. Others within the discipline have an oversimplified understanding of feminist archaeology's history and aims, and as a consequence mistakenly conflate it with postmodernism. Some archaeologists have argued against the continued incorporation of feminist thought, which is inherently political, into archaeological studies of gender. Few works in gender archaeology have actively engaged in challenging patriarchal power structures beyond rectifying androcentric histories. Feminist archaeology engages in challenging and changing interpretive frameworks employed by archaeologists: “Feminism is a politics aimed at changing gender-based power relations.”. Noted feminist philosopher Alison Wylie delineates several guidelines imperative for conducting feminist archaeology:

1. To propose research questions that address people oppressed by systems of inequality structured by gender, in order to change such conditions.
2. Feminist research should be grounded in the situated experience of women and other groups marginalized by conventional gender structures.
3. Researchers should be held accountable to those affected by their research; under no means should feminist research exploit others.
4. Feminist researchers should engage in self-reflexivity, recognizing their personal social positions, interests, and values, and discussing how these interact with their research.

In contrast, gender archaeology not employed by feminists lacks such characteristics. Gender is currently a common topic of study in archaeology among non-feminists. Such studies focus on identifying gendered activities and material culture and on the gender roles of past peoples, but do not present themselves in an overtly political way. Non-feminist archaeologists are less compelled to position themselves within their work, or reflect on how their position affects their work. Investigating gender independent of feminism, however, elides the aims of early studies and represents gender and sex in a conceptually deficient manner.