Conference Agenda

Session
FOR-105 (UW): Can We Co-Create an Intersectional Feminist Maritime Archaeology? Maritime Archaeology and Gender Diversity
Time:
Saturday, 11/Jan/2025:
9:00am - 12:00pm

Session Chair: Megan C Crutcher, Texas A&M University
 Location: Studio 8

Capacity 80

Presentations

Can We Co-Create an Intersectional Feminist Maritime Archaeology? Maritime Archaeology and Gender Diversity

Organizer(s): Megan C Crutcher (Texas A&M University, United States of America)

Chair(s): Megan C Crutcher (Texas A&M University)

Panelist(s): Ellen Hsieh (National Tsing Hua University), Olivia Thomas (Texas A&M University), Christin Heamagi (Maritime Archaeology Trust), Marijo Gauthier-Bérubé (Institut de Recherche en Histoire Maritime et Archéologie Subaquatique), Kelsey Rooney (University of Chicago), Elena Perez-Alvaro (Nelson Mandela University), Grace Désiree Grodji (Universite Félix Houphouët-Boigny), Aminata Mbaye (Universite Cheikh Anta Diop), Abhirada Pook Komoot (Maritime Asia Heritage Survey), Isabel Rivera-Collazo (UC San Diego), Hanna Steyne (Wessex Archaeology), Annaliese Dempsey (LX Hermitage/Texas A&M University)

A Google Scholar search for “feminist maritime archaeology” yields zero results. While women archaeologists have blazed trails in maritime, nautical, and underwater archaeology, these fields have often seemed to lag behind other subfields' analyses of gender. We are still advocating for the idea that women were present aboard ships in the past, and the maritime domain has been assumed to be predominantly male--in history and in practice. In archaeological practice, we know that gender-based harassment, exclusion, and other issues are common, especially for those with intersecting minoritized and racialized identities (Brami et al. 2022; Coltofean-Arizancu et al. 2023; Cook 2019; Overholtzer et al. 2021; Voss 2023). This panel unites a diverse range of scholars, students, and practitioners in maritime archaeology to analyze our global maritime past with a critical and intersectional lens on gender. We aim to encourage people of all genders to commit to a more feminist maritime archaeology.