Esteemed Collegues,
Enclosed is a paper call for a session Stacey Camp and myself are
organizing for the 2007 SHAs. Our discussants for this session are Don
Hardesty and Karen Metheny. For those of you conducting research
relating to archaeological landscapes and productive enterprise, please
feel free to submit paper ideas to the email addresses provided below.
Thank you.
Regards,
Stathi Pappas
Landscapes of Labor: A Phenomenological Approach
The purpose of this session is to disseminate scholarship that
analyzes differing emic perspectives of landscapes of labor caused by
industrial ideology, personal identities, gender norms, and class roles
within industrial societies. Scholarship from all regions and time
periods are most welcome, although studies regarding industrial and
proto-industrial landscapes are especially encouraged. Some studies
have treated landscapes of labor as settings for control, dominance and
resistance, discourse, creation of mythology and history, and social
engineering. However, most studies indirectly examine the differing
goals, interpretations, and values of landscape inhabitants.
Phenomenological approaches provide an analytical framework
particularly suited to exploring the multivocal and often didactic
nature of landscapes of labor. Phenomenology is the understanding of
space and place as it is experienced by the individual. The concepts of
space as created by social relations and places as centers of human
significance reinforce the subjective and experiential activity of
landscape maintenance. The heterogeneity found among workers, managers,
aristocrats of labor, and owners calls for analysis of how differing
perceptions of the same landscape could create different social
realities. Landscape is not passive, just as interaction is not simply
discourse that is detached from importance or subjectivity. Instead,
landscape becomes an empowering entity that is used and manipulated by
individuals and groups to achieve goals. This means that categories
such as class, gender, ethnicity, etc., provide a multiplicity of lines
by which an individual may interpret a landscape based on their own
self-identity. Some potential paper topics include:
• The intersection of pre-industrial immigrant labor forces with the
industrial landscape of America in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• The expression, maintenance, or changing role of ethnic identities
in the face of industrial ideology manifested in landscapes.
• The adoption, rejection, or creation of gender roles imbedded within
landscapes of labor.
• The effect of class and status on the creation or reaffirmation of
gender roles within the labor landscape.
• Landscape learning on the part of pre-industrial laborers.
• Cognitive models of strife surrounding labor landscapes based on
different categories of personal identity.
• Pre-industrial landscape paradigms applied to industrialism creating
hybrid landscapes.
If interested in participating please provide a short synopsis of your
research to Efstathios I. Pappas and Stacey Camp at:
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______________________________________________________
Efstathios I. Pappas, MS
Doctoral Student
Department of Anthropology/096
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, NV 89557
(775) 323-5730
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