Archaeology Moms: Mobility, Parenting, and Privilege in Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

One of the great parts of being an archaeologist is that it is an excuse to travel: for jobs, research, and conferences. Yet some of us are more free to travel than others. In this paper, I will focus on the experiences of parents—mothers in particular—to explore how the expectations of mobility in archaeology poses problems for some members of our professional communities. The paper will draw on approximately 100 qualitative in-depth interviews conducted with a diverse sample of US-based academic archaeologists between 2016 and 2021. I argue that archaeology careers are structured on the assumption that our primary commitment is to our work, and that those of us who have conflicting commitments (such as to our children) often use money and spousal or familial support to navigate archaeology careers. Because these resources are not available to all archaeologists, parenting is most accessible to the most privileged archaeologists. We must restructure archaeology to make it possible for practitioners of all identities to both succeed in their careers and form families however they prefer.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35640.0