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title:
Archaeology of Identity : Approaches to Gender,Ae, Status, Ethnicit and Reliion
author:
Di̕az-Andreu Garci̕a, Margarita.
publisher:
Taylor & Francis Routledge
isbn10 asin:
0415197457
rint isbn13:
9780415197458
ebook isbn13:
9780203087572
language:
English
subject
Social archaeology, Identity (Psychology) ,Antiquities--Social aspects, gtt--Archeologie, gtt--Identiteit, Arche̕ologie sociale, Identite̕Pscholoie , Antiuite̕s--Asect social.
ublication date:
2005
lcc:
CC72.4.A73 2005eb
ddc:
930.1
subject:
Social archaeology, Identity (Psychology) ,Antiquities--Social aspects, gtt--Archeologie, gtt--Identiteit, Arche̕ologie sociale, Identite̕(Psychologie) , Antiquite̕s--Aspect social.
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1Introduction
Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Sam Lucy
What is identity?
‘Identity’ is a term that may seem self-explanatory as it gets used in a number of differentways. A cursory look through any library’s catalogue under the keyword ‘identity’ shows thatthis term is mostly used in connection with ethnic studies –to the extent that ‘ethnicity’ issometimes absent from the title –followed by gender and nationalism, and occasionallyreligion, age and class/status. All this diversity is found in archaeology in books such as, tocite just two of the many examples, Shennan’s (1989a)
 Archaeological Approaches toCultural Identity
and McCafferty and McCafferty’s (1998 [1991]) article on ‘Spinning andweaving as female gender identity in Post-Classic Mexico’. Despite the popularity of the term,definitions of identity are hard to find. This may be related to the ambiguity with which theterm has been used. This is acknowledged by the anthropologists Barnard and Spencer (1996:292), who explain that anthropological uses of ‘identity’ are ambiguous, as they canrefer both to individual identity (as in ‘self-identity’) and to group identity. It is the firstmeaning that is favoured by some lexical dictionaries. In the
Collins English Dictionary
, for example, identity is defined as ‘the individual characteristics by which a person or thing isrecognised’ and as ‘the state of having unique identifying characteristics held by no other  person or thing’. In this volume the latter definitions will not be followed, as we will refer tothem using the concept of ‘personality’. Rather, collective identities and the role of theindividual within them will be the focus (for further discussions on the relation of ‘personhood’ to such collective identities see Fowler 2004). In this and the following chapters‘identity’ will be understood as individuals’ identification with broader groups on the basis of differences socially sanctioned as significant.The definition of identity we are using in this volume has many implications that are further explained below as well as in the various chapters. Briefly we will try to introduce them bysaying that identity, as we understand it, is inextricably linked to the sense of belonging.Through identity we perceive ourselves, and others see us, as belonging to certain groups andnot others. Being part of a group entails active engagement. Identity, therefore, is
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Page 2not a static thing, but a continual process (literally, that of identification, cf. Hall 1996).Identities are constructed through interaction between people, and the process by which weacquire and maintain our identities requires choice and agency. Through agency we definewho we are. We are potentially able to choose the groups we want to identify with, althoughthis selection is always constrained by structures beyond our control such as boundaries andour own body. The active role of the individual leads to identities being historical, fluid,subject to persisting change. They are also socially mediated, linked to the broader culturaldiscourse and are performed through embodiment and action. The concept of identitydeployed in this volume, therefore, is not an essentialist, but a strategic and positional one.Identities can be hybrid or multiple and the intersection between different types of identities isone of the most enriching aspects of this new field of study.
Identity before: a glimpse to the history of twentieth-century archaeological thought
We cannot claim that archaeological discussions of identity have only arisen recently. Yet,there are major differences in the way that the concept was used in the past (and still is bymany archaeologists all over the world) and how it is understood in the most recentdevelopments in the social sciences in general and archaeology in particular. In this sectionsome of these differences will be explained as a way of contextualising this book. The maindifference lies in the fact that traditionally archaeology has not seen identity as subjective andcontingent, but as objective, inherent and primordial. The relationship between materialculture and identity was perceived as unproblematic and this is something that has now beenchallenged. The key to understanding these differences is the role of the individual in pastsocieties within archaeological interpretation.From the early decades of the twentieth century, archaeologists did not see individuals as their concern, but rather archaeological cultures. Childe excellently illustrated this point when,discussing the archaeology along the river Danube, he said: ‘whether these Moravian peasantsactually came themselves up the Danube is immaterial; their culture did’ (Childe 1927:85). In practice, cultures were treated and perceived as individuals: cultures were born, developed andflourished and were eventually transformed into something else (another archaeologicalculture) and/or died. This affected the way in which identity was thought of; more thananything else, this deeply influenced perceptions of the key identity then at the heart of archaeological study: ethnic identity. Archaeological cultures were equated with ethnic groups.To start with, this equation was openly acknowledged. The renowned archaeologist PereBosch Gimpera, for example, explicitly identified archaeological cultures with ethnic groupsin his booklet ‘Endeavouring to Reconstruct the Prehistoric Ethnology of the IberianPeninsula’ (1922). As he put it:
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