The somatization of archaeology: Institutions, discourses, corporeality

Abstract

This paper examines archaeology's somatization. New conceptualizations of sex and gender in philosophy, anthropology and queer theory are discussed. Current formulations of the body within our discipline, such as the fascination with Foucault and power‐based interpretations, are at the expense of human agency and individuality. One way of engaging with the lived body, bypassing essentialism and social constructionism, is to view embodied persons as individuated sites of interface and resolution between the biological, cultural and personal. To illustrate these notions, Egyptian concepts of the body, self and death are explored in a mortuary context at the site of Deir el Medina.