Theme:
4. Polis, Empire, League and Beyond – Living in Interconnected Societies
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Gender Dynamics at the Dawn of the Classical World: An Indigenous Perspective [AGE]
Content:
The Iron Age brought lasting changes to the organization of Mediterranean societies, including increasing social complexity, the creation of city-states and other distinct territorial polities, the emergence of Mediterranean-wide exchange networks, and the widespread adoption of new technologies. These interconnected changes likely had a considerable impact on the economic and political organization and everyday lives of local communities, yet gender – one of the main axes around which people lives is structured – has yet to be fully integrated into this narrative. This is problematic, because traditional norms and behaviors regarding gender likely contributed to shaping local responses to these widespread changes, while also having to shift and adjust, in the long-term, to the changing economic and political context.
In this session, we would like to explore this issue from a comparative, Mediterranean perspective, highlighting the diversity of local responses to broad global shifts. In particular, we are calling for contributors to focus on the ways in which the allocation of power changed as more resources became available through Mediterranean-wide exchanges and migrations, as the social organization based largely on kinship became more stratified and as the distinction between the public and the private sphere became sharper. We would like to anchor our discussion around three main points: (1) a focus on all genders in their intersection with other axes of social organization (e.g. age, status); (2) a diachronic perspective; (3) gender in its relation with culture contact: how was gender renegotiated in light of the opportunities/threats/changes that occurred with the renewal and intensification in connectivity that took place in this period?
Keywords:
Gender, Iron Age, Power dynamics, Colonization, Intersectionality, Iconography
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
AGE
Main organiser:
Giulia Saltini Semerari (United States) 1
Co-organisers:
Merixtell Ferrer (Spain) 2
Mireia López-Bertran (Spain) 3
Affiliations:
1. University of Michigan
2. Universitat Pompeu Fabra
3. Universitat de València
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