Mothering and Archaeology

Laura Seifert has more than 20 years of experience in archaeology, museums, and higher education. Seifert has spent her career working on archaeology projects from the Canadian border to the Caribbean, with a focus on the southeastern United States. Since earning her Masters’ degree from East Carolina University, Seifert has been digging through Savannah’s museums and squares. She is the Chief of Resources Management at Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia, when not mothering her young son (because federal regulations do not permit childcare while working). Suzanne Spencer-Wood is a Professor at Oakland University in Michigan, USA, and was an Associate of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University 1992-2019. In 1989 she organized the first two conference symposia on gender research in historical archaeology, at the Joint Archaeological Congress and at the Chacmool Conference, and has several publications on feminist theory and gender research in historical archaeology that address mothering in homes and institutions for children and children’s social agency.

1. Introduction; Part 1: Mothering at Prehistoric/Protohistoric Sites; 2. Great Mothers, Motherhood and Ma’atic Principle in Ancient Egypt, An Afrocentric Analysis;3. Iron Age Motherhood as Social Institution and Lived Practice; 4. Of Mothers and Midwives in Postclassic Central Mexico; Part 2: Mothering at Historic Sites; 5. Materializations of Historical Transformations in Western Ideologies and Conceptualizations of Motherhood and Mothering Practices: from Private to Public 1650-1900s;
6. “Sometime Come the Mother. Sometime the Wolf”: Mothering Youth in the Midst of War in Nineteenth Century Yucatan; 7. Separation, Tension, Trauma: Exploring Mothering and Cultural Resilience at the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School; 8. The Materiality of Yearning: an Archaeology of Carceral Motherhood in 19th Century Van Diemen’s Land, Australia; Part 3 Mothering, Sexual Politics, and Archaeology; 9. Of Monks and Mothers: Using Archaeology to Gain Perspective and Foster Feminist Activism; 10. Archaeology and Motherhood in a Nordic Welfare State; 11. I’m too tired to come up with a clever title: Archaeology and Motherhood;12. Kids in the Trenches: Women as Mothers and Professionals in Archaeology; 13. A personal story of these Roles I play: Site Mama, Uncle/Dad, Mommy, and oh yes… and CRM Archaeologist; Part 4: Commentary; 14. Commentary: Feminist Theories, Mothering and Archaeology