3.5: Glossary

abjection. The state of being cast off. Poststructural explorations find the term’s use inherently disturbing to conventional identity and cultural concepts. One who is abject has been rejected.

Andes. The longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America.

antiquarianism. The study of history with particular attention to ancient artifacts and archaeological and historical sites.

binary oppositions. Words and concepts that are considered to be direct opposites, such as man and woman, male and female.

bioanthropology. A scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related nonhuman primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective.

bioarchaeologists. Those who study human remains in archaeological sites. First coined by British archaeologist Grahame Clark in 1972 as a reference to zooarchaeology, the study of animal bones from archaeological sites.

counterhegemonic. A confrontation or opposition to a status quo or hegemonic power and its legitimacy in politics, but also appears in other spheres of life, such as history, media, and music.

critical theory. The reflective assessment and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities to reveal and challenge power structures. Critical theory has origins in sociology and also in literary criticism.

ethnocentric. A term used in social sciences and anthropology to describe the act of judging another culture by the values and standards of one’s own culture in the belief that one’s culture is superior, especially with respect to language, behavior, customs, and religion.

feminism. A range of social movements, political movements, and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.

gender complementarity. Men and women (and other genders, if they are recognized) play similarly important roles but in different areas of social life. Gender complementarity more accurately describes gender relations than gender hierarchy in some times and places.

gender fluidity. Cultural ideas about gender frequently imply that one’s gender identity is fixed and unchanging. Gender fluidity describes situations in which a person’s gender identity may change throughout the life cycle or in different contexts.

gender hierarchy. How genders are ranked. Men are typically ranked higher than women, having more power, prestige, and so on.

gender parallelism. Men and women (and other genders, if culturally recognized) have similar levels of power and prestige but in different areas of social life. Often used interchangeably with gender complementarity and as an alternative to gender hierarchy in some times and places (e.g., in the Inca empire).

heteronormativity. The belief that heterosexuality, predicated on the gender binary, is the norm or default sexual orientation.

intersectionality. Social identities, such as race, class, and gender, that overlap or intersect and the related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination.

looted artifact. An artifact that has been removed from its original archaeological context, usually illegally, by nonarchaeologists who do not record contextual information. Looted artifacts are often sold on the art market away from their place of origin. Archaeologists despise looting because an artifact without context is much less informative about the culture that produced it than an artifact with contextual information.

Mesoamerica. An archaeological region defined by precontact cultural traits such as a distinctive calendar system, maize agriculture, and state-level political organization. It extended from northern Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

normativity. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible.

performative. A linguistics term referring to utterances that do not just describe the world but change it (e.g., “I pronounce you husband and wife”).

performativity. Popularized by the scholar Judith Butler in gender studies, the term highlights the idea that gender is not a given but must be continually demonstrated through word, action, dress, and so on. The concept derives from the linguistics term performative.

positionality. The contexts that make up an individual’s identity, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, and how these affect the person’s view of the world.

processual. The methodological study of cultural change and variability in archaeology.

taxonomy. The practice and science of classification of things or concepts, including the principles that underlie such classification.

xochihuas. Effeminate men who had a range of institutional roles in Aztec society.