THE CREATION OF GENDER BIAS IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS: Recontextualizing Archaeological and Archival Collections from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. (21st September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Heitman, Carrie C.
• Is Part Of: Museum anthropology. Volume 40:Number 2(2017:Autumn)
• Page Start: 128
• Page End: 142
• Publication Date: 2017-09-21
• Subjects: museum collections -- gender bias -- feminist science -- digital archive -- Chaco Canyon; Anthropological museums and collections -- Periodicals; Museum techniques -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 396.074
• DOI: 10.1111/muan.12139
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0892-8339

Abstract

Abstract: Using feminist and decolonial archival theory, this article examines a case study exposing the gender biases entailed in the creation of both image and artifact collections from historic‐era excavations in the American Southwest. Documentary and photographic archives aggregated from various institutional repositories into the Chaco Research Archive (CRA) document the initial segregation of women into particular areas of archaeological practice and help shed light on the historical context for contemporary issues of gender segregation. This article recontextualizes primary archaeological data, engages legacy materials as both source and subject, and provides a methodology to read "against the archive" in an effort to expose and reinterpret gender inequalities. Women archaeologists, I argue, are underrepresented in the visual records of the early to mid‐twentieth century. I also demonstrate how selective field documentation and collection practices obscure some of the ways women participated in the social transformations that defined emergent Chacoan society.