David Mullin (University of Reading; davemullin@hotmail.com)

Recent debates in archaeology and anthropology have brought into focus the role of material culture in forming, maintaining and negotiating identity. Cultural expression is no longer seen as reflecting the presence of monolithic, homogenous social groups, but is rather a means of “buying into” social relationships and beliefs or expressing and negotiating ethnic identities. Studies of the relationships between ethnicity and material culture have suggested that culture does not passively reflect social relationships and organisation, but that there is a recursive relationship between the two: shared beliefs and commitments, shared memories and engaging in joint action have a role in forming identity and community as much as shared traditions of material production and architecture. Such communities may be viewed as being held together by a constructed identity based on inclusion and exclusion: choosing to accept or reject certain aspects of material culture, t he way in which this was produced, or how it was integrated within existing frameworks, may have had key roles in the construction of these communities. The decision about which sets of practices were adopted or rejected may have not only have established identity based on difference, but may also have been used to produce consensus and community, establishing boundaries and borders around and between different social groups.

These boundaries may be physical and/or social and it is the intention of this session to explore how they are constructed, policed and crossed. In particular, the focus will be on the possibilities for interpretation of archaeological phenomena through the concept of border theory. The field of border studies is relatively new, and has, until recently, focussed on nation states and international political boundaries (particularly that between the United States and Mexico). Of late, the study of borders as physical entities has given way to the examination of concepts concerning symbolic borders; visible and invisible lines; regional and local lived experience; landscape and identity. The idea of the border as a discursive practise which creates and negotiates meanings, norms and values has emerged, and the ways in which people and institutions create, enforce and transcend borders, both imaginary and real, has formed a focus of research across the arts and social sciences. Archaeology has much to contribute to these debates and is in a unique position to both add breadth to the study of (physical and mental) borders and boundaries, as well as adding historical depth. However, although anthropologists have identified the relevance of border studies to their field, archaeologists have been rather slower to exploit the opportunities the approach offers. Rather, the focus has been on the construction of ethnic and gendered identities and, although there is overlap between the study of borders and bordering practices and approaches to ethnicity and gender, these have been under-explored.

This session encourages the exploration of the experience of real (geographical, political, linguistic, cultural) and imagined (between people, species, gender, life and death) borders and how, as archaeologists, we comprehend the ways in which they were established, experienced and negotiated in the past.