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Engendering context. Context as gendered practice in the early Bronze Age of the Upper Thames Valley, UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Joanna Sofaer Derevenski
Joanna Sofaer Derevenski*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton, UK
*
[email: jrsd@soton.ac.uk]
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Abstract

This article explores the use of context in relation to the articulation and understanding of gender. Context can be regarded as gendered practice. Focusing on mortuary settings in the early Bronze Age of the Upper Thames Valley, it examines ways that people took gender into account in complex decisions involved in burial and the construction of difference. Here, men and women were conceptualized in distinct ways that were not necessarily equivalent. Difference was expressed in terms of degrees of complexity of intersections between sex and other social categories. Beaker burial contexts were active and engendered material media for social relations.

Cet article examine l'utilisation du contexte pour l'articulation et la compréhension des sexes. On considère que le context reflète la différence des sexes à travers les pratiques funéraires. En se concentrant sur les complexes mortuaires de l'âge du bronze ancien dans la vallée supérieure de la Tamise, on examine de quelle manière le sexe des défunts fut pris en considératon au moment de prendre les décisions complexes se rapportant à l'inhumation et à l'expression de la différence. Ici, hommes et femmes furent pensés/conçus de manière distincte et pas forcément équivalente. La différence fut exprimée en fonction du degré de la complexité des intersections entre le sexe et les autres catégories sociales. Les contextes funéraires à gobelets étaient les médias actifs et matériels sexuées des relations sociales.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Verwendung des Kontextes in Beziehung zur Artikulation und dem Verständnis des Geschlechts. Kontext kann als ‘Geschlechts-Praxis’ angesehen werden. Mit Blick auf die frühbronzezeitlichen Bestattungssitten des oberen Themse-Tales, untersucht er die Art und Weise, mit der die Menschen das ‘soziale Geschlecht’ in komplexe Entscheidungen des Begräbniswesens und der ‘Konstruktion von Unterschieden’ einbezogen. Dabei wurden Männer und Frauen in unterschiedlichen Formen konzeptualisiert, die nicht notwendigerweise gleichwertig sein mußten. Der Unterschied wurde in Abstufungen einer Komplexität von Überschneidungen zwischen dem ‘biologischen Geschlecht’ und anderen sozialen Kategorien ausgedrückt. Becher-Bestattungen waren aktive und auf das soziale Geschlecht bezogene materielle Medien sozialer Beziehungen.

Keywords

Bronze Ageburialcategorizationcontextdifferencedisplaygenderpracticeâge du bronzecatégorisationcontextedifférenceexposerinhumationpratiquesexeBestattungBronzezeitDarstellungKategorisierungKontextPraxis‘soziales Geschlecht’Unterschied
Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 2002 , pp. 191 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Sage Publications 

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