T18/S01 Archaeology While Female: The Challenges of Bias, Inequity and Backlash for Women in Professional Archaeology
Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Organisers: Nicole Boivin, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Germany, boivin@gea.mpg.de
Sandra L. López Varela, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, slvarela@comunidad.unam.mx
Cherrie de Leiuen, Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Government of South Australia, Australia
Carito Tavera Medina, University of Barcelona, Spain, caritotaveramedina@ub.edu
The discipline of archaeology has, in many countries, moved on considerably from a time when women were excluded from professional spaces or relegated to the discipline’s periphery. Yet critical professional inequities and biases remain, presenting ongoing challenges to practicing archaeology ‘while female’. These challenges include persistent problems of sexual harassment, often intensified by the hierarchical male settings that characterise field and lab work, as well as structural barriers faced by women during pregnancy and while managing caregiving responsibilities.
Women in archaeology also encounter systemic obstacles familiar across many fields, including wage disparities, gender-biased promotion and tenure practices, disproportionate mentorship demands, excessive teaching loads, and skewed teaching evaluations. A higher prevalence of part-time and precarious contracts further compounds these challenges. In extreme cases, female archaeologists have experienced workplace hostility, resistance to their authority, bullying—including upward bullying—and even vexatious or malicious allegations.
This session seeks to document, assess, and propose solutions to these persistent professional inequities across archaeology’s academic, research, heritage, government, and industry sectors. It also explores the intersectional biases that amplify these challenges, particularly for marginalised women, including Indigenous women, women of colour, and gender-minority women. We invite archaeological practitioners from diverse backgrounds and global contexts to participate in this crucial discussion. By examining and addressing gender biases and their intersectional dimensions, we aim to foster a more inclusive and equitable discipline that fully supports and values the contributions of all its members.
T18/S02 (Re)making History: Exploring the Archaeological Contributions of Women from Past to Present
Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Organisers: Sandra L. López Varela, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, slvarela@comunidad.unam.mx
Margarita Diaz-Andreu, ICREA and University of Barcelona, m.diaz-andreu@ub.edu
Nicole Boivin, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, boivin@gea.mpg.de
Emilie Dotte-Sarout, The University of Western Australia, emilie.dotte@uwa.edu.au
The history of archaeology has predominantly centered on the achievements of white male explorers, adventurers, and researchers, whose dominance in historiographic narratives has been further amplified and popularised through Hollywood portrayals. Over the past decades, efforts to re-examine and spotlight the contributions of women in the field of archaeology have helped to demonstrate the roles that they have played in the development of the discipline. Highlighting women’s contributions through biographies and explorations of their work involves more than just acknowledging their presence and the impacts that women have had. It also sheds light on the diverse social, economic, political, and geographical contexts that have shaped and constrained their practice of archaeology.
This session welcomes archaeologists of all genders to participate in creating a more diverse and inclusive disciplinary history for archaeology. In particular, it welcomes contributions that draw on intersectionality as a framework and explore how the positioning of female archaeologists within particular social, economic, geographic, and other contexts prompted unique responses to various forms of colonialism and violence. Financial constraints, gendered expectations, employment dynamics, Western academic perspectives, and diverse feminisms are also welcomed as the focus of discussion. Moreover, we expect that rewriting the history of archaeology through the transformative lens of women’s perspectives may also require the inclusion of scholars outside the gender binary.
Finally, in this session we would like to encourage reflection on how the acknowledgement of women’s unique contributions and responses to diverse constraints and barriers may hold the potential to significantly reshape the way archaeology is portrayed and understood today. Such exploration may also challenge participants to critically rethink Western-centric narratives and enduring colonialisms, drawing on women’s perspectives to reconsider archaeological history more broadly.
This session invites archaeologists and scholars from diverse fields of study and diverse genders to further the project of rewriting the history of archaeology by helping to create a more comprehensive, multi-faceted understanding of the “women” behind its practice.
T18/S04: Reintegrating Women into the History of Chinese Archaeology
FORMAT: PAPER PRESENTATIONS WITH DISCUSSION
Organisers: Margarita Diaz-Andreu, ICREA and University of Barcelona, Spain, m.diaz-andreu@ub.edu
Tianyi Dong, University of Barcelona, Spain, tdongdon51@alumnes.ub.edu
Qian Gao, Durham University, UK, qian.gao@durham.ac.uk
In the same way that the acclaimed Chinese film Her Story (好东西,2024) has served as a wake-up call to Chinese society by denouncing stigmas against women, a new generation of women archaeologists is beginning to highlight the absence of female pioneers in the histories of Chinese archaeology. This gap is increasingly acknowledged, alongside growing recognition of the importance of uncovering the stories of women who contributed to the field. This session seeks to address this void by inviting papers that explore the women who shaped the history of Chinese archaeology since the start of the twentieth century. Contributions may take a long-term perspective, examining how women participated in archaeology—officially or unofficially—at sites, institutions, or within specific geographic regions. Alternatively, presentations may focus on a group of women or even an individual figure. We also welcome papers focusing on methodologies uncovering new female biographies or allowing a new understanding of known figures. Key topics to consider include the barriers women faced to engage in archaeology, the roles they undertook, and how these roles evolved over time. Papers addressing the current status of women in archaeology are welcome, provided they incorporate a historical perspective.