TAG2019-UCL

We live in volatile political times: white supremacy is rising, xenophobic attitudes shape politics, homophobic and transphobic discrimination continues and the pervasive and powerful nature of the patriarchy runs through all of these. Intersectional feminist, queer, and post-colonial discourses in broader society have resurged in this context.In archaeology essential work on sexual harassment has stimulated a powerful new wave of intersectional feminist discourse demanding changes in our practice. Yet our theory has seen less radical change. This is ironic because non-anthropocentric approaches have been gaining traction in archaeology, and many arise from feminist thinking. Feminist theorists such as Barad, Bennett, Braidotti, Grosz, and Harraway have drawn attention to how the majority of the population have been excluded from the category ‘human’ by humanism and argue for a radical re-understanding of the human and the vibrant worlds they are a part of. The humans that emerge are deeply relational, entangled with diverse other-than-humans, and always historical. These approaches are intersectional and feminist, yet our engagement with them often overlooks their potential to radically reframe marginalized voices both past and present.We call for papers which challenge this by engaging explicitly with the potential of post-anthropocentric, new materialist and post-humanist approaches to make bold and radical changes to our ontologies and thus our conceptualisation of marginalised (human and non-human) identities. Feminism was a crucial driver of post-processualism and engaging explicitly with developments in new materialist and post-humanist feminisms is of equal importance in realising the promise of the ontological turn.

Organisers: Rachel Crellin; University of Leicester • Hannah Cobb; University of Manchester

13:30 | Hannah Cobb, University of Manchester; Rachel Crellin, University of Leicester | Session introduction

13:35 | Penny Bickle, University of York | New approaches to difference? Celebrating and experiencing ambiguous bodies in the European Neolithic

13:52 | Yvonne O'Dell, University of Leicester | ‘Nobody knows what a [feminist] body can do’: difference, immanence and becoming

14:09 | Rachel Crellin, University of Leicester | A post-humanist, feminist approach to power

14:26 | Claudia Chang, Independent Scholar | “Nomadic subjects” and Eurasian Iron Age studies of households and feasting

14:43 | Session organisers | Discussion

14:53 | - | BREAK

15:23 | Marianne Hem Eriksen, Department of Archaeology, University of Oslo | Grievability, households, and violence in the Iron and Viking Ages

15:40 | Ben Jervis, Cardiff University | Misogyny, Patriarchy and Female Labour in the Medieval Household

15:57 | Craig N. Cipolla, Royal Ontario Museum/University of Toronto; James Quinn, Mohegan Tribal Historic Preservation Office | Situating posthuman feminisms in collaborative Indigenous archaeology

16:14 | Hannah Cobb, University of Manchester | Becoming Archaeologist

16:31 | Session organisers | Discussion

17:00 | - | END