Abstract This article conceptualizes life history groups as gendered affective infrastructure: relational, temporal, and interactional formations through which affect circulates, gendered pain is collectively held, and mortality is acknowledged. Rather than producing linear individual narratives, knowledge emerges through shared emotions, silences, tensions, and negotiated memories. Gendered affective infrastructure conceptualizes the life history group as a “soft container” of affect, where feminist knowledge is generated through the entanglement of bodies, narratives, and space in ongoing collective interaction. The article examines a life history group of older Mizrahi Jewish women (of Middle Eastern descent) in a lower‐income Tel Aviv neighborhood undergoing migration and urban transformation. Drawing on 29 ethnographic sessions conducted over eight months, it demonstrates how the group functioned as a lived infrastructure through which participants confronted gendered and age‐related vulnerabilities. Building on feminist epistemologies, the analysis shows how embodied, dialogical storytelling challenges research paradigms that privilege coherence and closure, instead cultivating openness, resilience, and shared meaning‐making. In doing so, the group fostered enduring relations of care and emotional support that enabled women to collectively navigate hardship. The article contributes to feminist ethnography and urban theory by positioning storytelling as a relational practice that generates knowledge, sustains care, and supports marginalized communities.
Abstract What survives of Classic Maya (250–925 CE) scribal tradition suggests that production and use of hieroglyphs were dominated by elite men. Ancient texts and imagery, as well as ethnohistorical sources, overwhelmingly position males as agents of writing. This situation significantly shapes contemporary understanding of the female aspects of Classic Maya society and encourages the tacit assumption of the absence of female scribes. In this paper, we argue that three factors have obscured the visibility of women in scribal roles: (1) archaeological preservation bias that erased the products of female scribes while preserving those produced by men; (2) a patriarchal assumption that men alone had access to the education required for literacy, and (3) a narrow definition of epigraphic sources that excludes images of writing. We draw attention to iconographic and hieroglyphic evidence that suggests that female participation in Classic Maya scribal tradition was less anomalous than previously assumed. We examine painted, sculpted, and molded images of garments and other textiles ornamented with hieroglyphs as evidence that women not only used but also produced writing. Critical consideration of these sources offers an expanded view of pre‐colonial Maya society that allows for female engagement in scribal practice.
ABSTRACT Sexual harassment and discrimination are pervasive within higher education where women typically receive lower pay, publish fewer papers, receive fewer grants, and are less likely to receive tenure. Previous research has shown how gender‐based harassment and discrimination are also prominent within the discipline of anthropology impacting students and faculty in field work, at conferences, and in the classroom. Within the United States Title IX is legislation meant to protect individuals from sex‐based discrimination at institutions receiving federal funding. In this research, we conducted a survey to determine the prevalence of sexual harassment and discrimination in biological anthropology, barriers to Title IX reporting, and the effectiveness of Title IX investigations. Results indicate that nearly half of respondents were subjected to sexual harassment and/or discrimination; however, less than one‐quarter filed Title IX complaints. Of those who filed Title IX complaints that went to an investigation, all reported being the subject of retaliation. Sexual harassment and discrimination as well as retaliation for reporting are clearly problematic in the discipline of biological anthropology, and Title IX is not adequately addressing these issues. We provide further information on the history of Title IX as well as considerations for future reform and ways to support survivors.
Abstract This article develops the concept of reproductive surplus to explore how the labor involved in social reproduction generates capacities that both support and exceed capitalist accumulation. Drawing on ethnographic research in the post‐industrial Portuguese city of Setúbal, it examines how households organize survival through networks of care, reciprocity, and institutional negotiation amid deindustrialization, precarious employment, and austerity. While these practices are often understood as mechanisms for reproducing labor power, the article argues that they also generate relational, moral, and practical capacities—forms of social knowledge, communicative competence, and moral judgement—that are crucial for navigating labor markets and welfare institutions. Bringing Marx's analysis of surplus value into dialogue with Maria Mies's feminist critique of reproductive labor and Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy of ambiguity, the article shows how contemporary capitalism increasingly relies on capacities produced through social reproduction, even though these capacities remain embedded in social relations that cannot be wholly subordinated to accumulation.
Abstract This article brings together the voices of members of three major feminist anthropological associations to discuss the state of feminist anthropology as a distinct subfield of anthropology, as well as its state of affairs as an increasingly expanding, as well as increasingly threatened, approach to anthropological theory and praxis worldwide. Composed as a conversation, it is based on a roundtable discussion that took place at the 2022 American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, which followed in the footsteps of an important roundtable discussion on Latin American feminist anthropologies that was held at the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) 2021 Congress. Topics discussed included definitions of feminist anthropology, feminist anthropological genealogies, the feminist anthropological canon, the contributions of feminist anthropology, the relationship between feminist scholarship and feminist activism, and the major theoretical, ethnographic, political, ethical, methodological, topical, and pedagogical challenges facing feminist anthropology and feminist anthropologists globally today. Participants included members of the Association for Feminist Anthropology section of the AAA, the IUAES Commission on Global Feminisms and Queer Politics, and the Society for Applied Anthropology Gender‐Based Violence Topical Interest Group.
