Beyond Binaries: Queering the Archaeological Record of the Western Canadian Arctic

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Queer theory is often equated with sexuality research in archaeology (Blackmore 2011), but a queering of the archaeological record actually allows us to challenge all aspects of (hetero)normativity in archaeological practice (Croucher 2005; Blackmore 2011). Queer is "whatever is at odds with the normal, legitimate and the dominant" (Halperin 1995:62), and it allows us to replace binaries—including those related to gender—with a proliferation of differences. Instead of focusing on a generalized understanding of gender, created and perpetuated in the archaeological literature, a queering of the archaeological record asks us to focus on examples of objects, spaces, or individuals that deviate from these generalizations. In this paper we will provide an overview of the gendered landscape of arctic archaeological research, including a retrospective survey demonstrating the normative ways arctic archaeologists have commonly discussed gender in their research. Additionally, we will discuss examples of individuals or groups who deviate from normative, binary gender roles drawn from both the ethnographic record and from interviews conducted with Inuvialuit elders and knowledge holders. Finally, we will consider the archaeological implications of viewing gender outside of simple binaries and how to move forward in our examinations of the material record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26155