Feminist Post-colonial Theory and the Gendering and Sexing of Colonial landscapes in Western North America

Summary

Research on landscapes of colonization and colonialism has been predominantly ungendered. Feminist post-colonial theories and research have revealed the centrality of gender and sexual systems and power dynamics in the formation of landscapes of colonization and colonialism.  Colonization involves what I call external colonialism, involving invasion and territorial conquest, which was a gendered and sexual landscape process called the conquest of women by the Spanish, and involving English sexual metaphors for natural landscapes. The concept of internal colonialism includes landscape processes of discrimination against minorities within polities, such as ghettos. This paper theorizes conceptualizations of different aspects of gender and sexual colonization and colonialism that were expressed through constructions of cultural landscapes, including attempts to impose European patriarchy, gender segregation, sexual exploitation, and domestic colonialism. Examples from Western North America clarify these different forms of gendered and sexual colonialism and their expressions in cultural landscapes. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Material Culture, Identity, and Practice: Methods, Theories, and Case Studies

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 332