Intersectionality and the Archaeology of Commensality

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

To food scholars, meals serve as microcosms of the world at large. Those interested in disentangling the complex relationship between food and structural inequality must simultaneously engage many dimensions of social life including class, race, ethnicity, gender, status, ritual, and religion. Since Kimberlé Crenshaw's groundbreaking 1989 article introducing the theory of “intersectionality,” scholars have applied intersectionality to diverse contexts, demonstrating how multiple axes of identity translate to differential access to privilege and experiences of oppression. In the realm of food studies, intersectional approaches have led to fresh insights about the reproduction of social inequality and food insecurity. In this paper, we aim to articulate the theories and methods most effective in the analysis of identity, inequality, and commensal politics. What formulation of intersectionality theory is most appropriate for the study of archaeological foodways? What innovative insights can we gain by explicitly analyzing the intersection of two or more axes of identity? What are the methodological challenges to seeing “intersectionality” in the archaeological record? The archaeological study of commensal politics from an intersectional perspective has the potential to uncover narratives that challenge conventional wisdom about how inequality and difference were/are created and maintained.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33091