‘Nobody knows what a [feminist] body can do’: difference, immanence and becoming
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2021-01-15

Our question is, what can a body do? Employing feminist new materialisms this paper seeks to explore how difference opens up new possibilities for considering bodies (human, non-human and more-than-human) in the past and present.By emphasising becoming over being, and immanence over transcendence we can take up a radical feminist position which seeks to undermine dominant narratives. Doing so requires us to emphasise the becoming of bodies within an immanent relational assemblage. We need to talk of local patches, local gatherings and minor becomings. In the past, exploring these issues through two patches from our research (Chinchorro Mummies from South America and Mummies from Neolithic Britain) allows us to open up difference as a critical venue for investigation. In the present, such an approach changes how we think about climate change and our responses to it. If the body of ‘Man’, is fixed, essentialised and transcendent, then the bodies of feminism are open, transformative, nomadic and becoming. In contrast, we argue that we need to attend to the differences feminist bodies make, and the processes of difference that feminist bodies are.


Yvonne O'Dell, University of Leicester