{"id":6831,"date":"2025-04-24T04:49:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T04:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/?page_id=6831"},"modified":"2025-04-24T10:41:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T10:41:15","slug":"t04-s07-papers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/t04-s07-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"T04\/S07: The Power in Otherness: Unpacking Theories of Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Format: Paper presentations with discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convenors:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Chelsea Blackmore, Albion Environmental, Inc., Santa Cruz, USA,\u00a0cblackmore@albionenvironmental.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Dawn M. Rutecki, Grand Valley State University, USA, ruteckda@gvsu.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Gabriela Ore Menendez, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA, gabriela.oremenendez@unlv.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Othering is a structural process where groups of people are categorised as being intrinsically different or alien to the dominant or \u2018moral\u2019 majority. Global capitalism, totalitarian regimes, and so-called democratic nation-states use othering to justify and normalise the marginalisation of some people over others. Yet this process of othering can also be a place from which community is built. But how do we understand the \u2018other\u2019 within archaeology beyond just a practice of marginality, and instead recognise this as a place of personal, social, and community power and resistance? As shifts in discussions of identity politics, human rights, and concepts of freedom change in response to local, national, and international movements, how we articulate theories of power are being constantly renegotiated. What these theories mean and how they become embedded in discussions about cultural items is critical to understanding how archaeology can work in support of human rights. This session seeks to unpack these theories of identity to understand both how concepts of identity and related theories fluidly change as well as how they have been misconstrued or misperceived. We welcome submissions that address theories of identities, activism, and resistance as applicable to archaeology broadly defined, including but not limited to anarchist theories, cosmopolitan theories, Critical Race Theories, crip theories, feminist theories, Indigenous theories, queer theories, socialist theories, and additional related theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papers:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Traversing Identities: Gender Narratives and Power Relations of Joggapas of Yellamma on the Border of Maharashtra and Karnataka<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siddhi Anil Mahale, Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, India<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present paper investigates the phenomenon of gender fluidity in Jogappas, a cross-dressing third-gender community that venerates the Goddess Yellama of Saundatti. This worship grants \u2018them\u2019 the ability to traverse through multiple gender identities, which is closely linked with the prevalent mythical narrative of Yellamma. The mythical strand dictates that the jogappa must face the spiritual transition from man to woman to become the \u2018wife\u2019 of sage Jamadagni, yet granting them the freedom to roam about as a man in social spheres. This divine transition elevates the humane body of jogappas to the divine body of goddess Yellamma herself. The ritual transformation ensures that the gender change remains only spiritual in nature, making no physical alterations. In such cases, jogappas convey their identification markers through their attire. These social \u2018pariahs\u2019 draw divine power to act as women in the spiritual realm for the greater good, while their unaltered \u2018male\u2019 bodies allow them to wield influence in the social spheres. This paper explores the traversing of the jogappas in the religious and social spheres vis-a-vis their functionality at the temple complex of Saundatti and their role in the religious practices of the mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activism in an Interdisciplinary Archaeology: Challenging Ableism Via Critical Disability Studies to Create an Inclusive Past, Present and Future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Vogel, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disability has always been a part of human history. However, diversity within the experience of disability is understudied in archaeology. It is an ableist assumption to assume that disabled people were always marginalised. Yet being considered \u2018other\u2019 has been influential to creating a shared disability identity. Critical disability studies use community resistance as an academic methodology to explore society. The engagements between archaeology and this field offer a unique avenue to challenge ableist narratives. Particularly relevant to archaeology, is the tension arising from Disability Studies\u2019 harsh criticism, and in some instances, rejection of medicalisation. While archaeology has made theoretical advancements with consideration of agency, identities and more, overmedicalisation is problematic within the Disability Studies lens. This tension is important to explore as the ways we study disabled people in the past has potentially harmful impacts on the disability community today. This paper explores these contentions and offers ways for these fields to collaborate. I, and an increasing number of peers, are challenging archaeology to be more inclusive of disability. In this paper I highlight the value of lived experiences, engagement with activists, disabled scholars, and the disability community, and explore how this produces a more accessible and genuinely better archaeology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complicating Fa\u00e7ades of Power: Archaeological Implications of Indigenous Resistance Recorded in Colonial Narratives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dawn M. Rutecki, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 16th and 17th centuries, European missionaries and military personnel communicated detailed accounts of colonising activities intended to assimilate, suppress, and eliminate North American Indigenous communities. In doing so, the writers also recorded the quotidian and exceptional acts of resistance employed by these communities. This paper discusses the Indigenous resistance tactics identified in these accounts from what is now the south-central United States to draw attention to the need for more nuanced interpretations of archaeological contexts. Working against simplistic notions of power, this work questions how these narratives instead show the fissures present in colonizing narratives of domination that necessarily complicate archaeological praxis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural Heritage Management: Governance Practices and Ethics in the Cultural Commons in San Pablo Villa de Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jorge Luis Rios Allier, Indiana University Bloomington, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mitla project examines how Indigenous Zapotec communities navigate cultural heritage management within state-imposed frameworks, revealing tensions between federal archaeological governance and local communal authority. By analysing how Mitla\u2019s residents assert agency over their heritage, this research explores othering not just as marginalisation but as a site of resistance, identity formation, and community power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is a Ch\u2019ixi Archaeology Possible? Rethinking South American Decolonial Archaeology Through the Work of Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carla Hern\u00e1ndez Garavito, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

South American Archaeology is living through a growing push towards a theoretical focus developed from within. Of particular influence is \u2018coloniality\u2019, an enduring form of colonialism that affects the frameworks of reference the colonised have of themselves and turns into a \u201ccoloniality of power\u201d normalised in the production of knowledge (Quijano 2007). However, coloniality and the emphasis on \u201csubaltern archaeologies\u201d as a generalised category for the production of scholars hailing from then Global South can also paper over the hierarchies and inequalities within formerly colonised regions. In this paper, I explore the work of the Andean Oral History Workshop and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui as an avenue for centring Indigenous frameworks in South American Archaeology and moving beyond a universalising approach to coloniality. I revisit Andean archaeology and my own work through the concept of ch\u2019ixi, \u201ca colour that is the product of juxtaposition, in small points or spots, of opposed or contrasting colours\u201d or \u201csomething that is and is not at the same time\u201d (Rivera Cusicanqui 2020:65). I argue that a ch\u2019ixi archaeology emphasises the choices of people and communities to make sense of their worlds as a space of creativity and transformation that overcome the binary of coloniser\/colonised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Embodied Otherness: Castrates and the Mutability of Social Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathryn Reusch, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human castration has existed since at least the 5th millennium CE. It was frequently performed before puberty, leading to individuals with disproportionate skeletons and distinct, androgynous, childlike features. This clearly indicated an individual\u2019s castrated status to those around them, visually marking them as \u2018other\u2019 and placing them in liminal physical and social roles in many cultures. Castrates were also frequently slaves imported from outside the boundaries of empires, geographically isolating them and adding to their otherness. This meant that, due to the socioculturally imposed monolithic group identity of \u2018castrate\u2019, they frequently only had each other with whom to create communities and build a sense of belonging. While we do not have much direct evidence of castrates\u2019 self-perception, within the historical record we see evidence of castrates forming communities and defying prohibitions placed on them, especially marriage bans and frugal mortuary rituals, and striving for the signs and status typical of the intact males in their society. We also see castrates using the perceptions of those around them to avoid punishments and enhance their own status. Thus, it seems that castrates were willing to use community to escape an externally imposed but physically embodied identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against Colonial Assumptions: Applying Latina Feminist Frameworks to Identity and Power in Mesoamerican Archaeology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea Blackmore, Albion Environmental, Inc., USA<\/em>
Shankari Patel, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mesoamerica archaeology and Latin American and Latino Studies remain for the most part two distinct areas of study, often with divergent theoretical frameworks and methodologies. In this paper, we consider how decolonised Latina feminist theory can provide a more nuanced analysis of how we approach identity in the ancient Mesoamerican past, specifically related to gender and sexuality. Mesoamerican archaeology, particularly discussions of social complexity, continue to ignore the diverse and context-specific ways in which identity is experienced and understood. Decolonised feminist theories prioritise understanding the specific material and local contexts that shape knowledge and experiences. This approach challenges the universalist assumptions often inherent in top-down perspectives, ensuring that feminist theory is more attuned to the diverse realities of people across different regions, temporal eras and cultures. These approaches value the creative and strategic ways in which oppressed groups navigate and resist their conditions, offering insights into the past that top-down Mesoamerican perspectives overlook. Overall, decolonised feminist theories and methodologies foster a more inclusive, context-sensitive, and participatory approach, which can significantly improve the limitations of our current colonial-inspired archaeological perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contested Identities and Decolonial Memory in an Industrialised Agrarian Landscape<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace Alexandrino Oca\u00f1a, University of Engineering and Technology (Per\u00fa)<\/em>
Francesca Fernandini, Pontificia Universidad Cat\u00f3lica del Per\u00fa<\/em>
Marcos Alarc\u00f3n, University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haciendas in Peru are often remembered as spaces of agricultural production, yet they also operated as infrastructures of systemic violence that shaped enduring processes of othering. This paper examines Hacienda Casa Blanca, in San Luis de Ca\u00f1ete, as a site where racialised and marginalised identities were constructed, erased, and contested through time. Drawing on a decolonial framework and a multidisciplinary methodology\u2014combining historical, ethnographic, and archaeological approaches\u2014we trace how Afro-Peruvian, Chinese, Japanese, and highland migrant communities were positioned as \u2018others\u2019 within extractive agrarian regimes, from colonial slavery through the latifundio system to modern agribusiness. The materiality of the hacienda, its built environment, and spatial organization reveal how landscapes were designed to control, segregate, and dehumanise labouring bodies, while also becoming spaces of everyday resistance. Today, descendant communities engage with Casa Blanca through commemorative practices and grassroots heritage initiatives, reframing the site not as a relic of the past but as a living terrain of memory, identity, and political struggle. This case foregrounds how decolonial archaeological research can challenge dominant historical narratives, make visible silenced communities, and contribute to rethinking the politics of identity, otherness, and heritage in the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reclaiming Marginalised Narratives: Toward an Inclusive Archaeological Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriela Or\u00e9 Men\u00e9ndez, University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we reconcile our present identities when they remain invisible in our understanding of the past? Compulsory heterosexuality and ableist frameworks have systematically erased diverse modes of existence from historical narratives, leaving many individuals searching for reflections of themselves in an incomplete historical record. This erasure extends beyond personal histories to community narratives, where non-normative ways of being are categorised as deviant rather than as valid expressions of human diversity. For decades, archaeological practice has operated within Western, capitalist, and patriarchal paradigms, effectively silencing stories that challenge dominant power structures. This presentation advocates for a transformative archaeological approach that centres marginalised experiences. By bringing queer and disabled archaeological perspectives to the forefront, we create space for multidimensional narratives that enrich our understanding of the past. We propose methodological innovations that transcend the traditional binary of excavation and survey, embracing technological advancements that democratise access to historical knowledge. Through these approaches, we envision an archaeology that recovers and celebrates the full spectrum of human experience, transforming every aspect of practice\u2014from the questions we pursue to our methods of dissemination\u2014while meaningfully engaging communities in reclaiming and interpreting their multifaceted histories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Format: Paper presentations with discussion Convenors:\u00a0 Dr Chelsea Blackmore, Albion Environmental, Inc., Santa Cruz, USA,\u00a0cblackmore@albionenvironmental.com Dr Dawn M. Rutecki, Grand Valley State University, USA, ruteckda@gvsu.edu Dr Gabriela Ore Menendez, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA, gabriela.oremenendez@unlv.edu Othering is a structural process where groups of people are categorised as being intrinsically different or alien to the dominant or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1157,"featured_media":276,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-6831","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"pmpro-has-access","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7190,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6831\/revisions\/7190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}