By Ségolène Vandevelde, University of Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne

How can one perceive the invisible and how can one understand what one has not experienced personally?

Can one even understand what one has not lived through? To this question, sociology and anthropology answer yes[1]. But to do so, the socio-anthropologist first undertakes an inquiry involving the collection and listening to the lived experiences of the people concerned by the phenomenon studied. For that, it is necessary to give them the opportunity to speak without assuming one already knows the subject. Testimonies are in this regard a marvelous material for conveying voice, lived experiences, and personal experience, and for making visible subjects hitherto largely ignored or minimized, such as sexism in archaeology.

The initiative Paye Ta Truelle has thus collected, since January 2017, hundreds of testimonies about direct or insidious violence experienced in archaeology, and in particular on excavation sites. The exhibition Archéo-Sexisme, organized jointly with the association Archéo-Éthique, contributed to making these multiple personal experiences visible.

Showing the systemic aspect of the discriminations illustrated by the testimonies: archaeology as a reflection of society

A personal experience is not enough to understand a phenomenon in its social, cultural, or systemic dimension. Within the framework of the Archéo-Sexisme exhibition, the multiplicity of testimonies concerning acts of harassment, assault, or more broadly sexism sometimes combined with other forms of discrimination reveals first of all that these are not epiphenomena; furthermore, the viewer can notice the redundancy of certain themes or certain acts, hinting at trends and mechanisms. Moreover, they will observe that while some forms of expression of sexism are specific to the particular professional environment of archaeology, most go beyond it: these situations exist in other disciplines, indeed in all spheres of society. This is also why archaeology is a remarkable field: it is a confined field, a small community where businesses, the private sector, the public sector, universities, etc. coexist, and on which qualitative and quantitative surveys can be conducted. Archaeological practice can indeed take varied forms; it thus encompasses a multiplicity of socio-professional risks and constitutes a window onto society.

The Archéo-Sexisme exhibition therefore focuses on archaeology but that does not make it an exercise limited to one community. On the contrary, this exhibition illustrates processes at work throughout society.

Thinking and rethinking the question of discrimination: a twofold reading thanks to illustrated testimonies

We chose the form of an exhibition of illustrated testimonies to convey both the voices of the victims[2] (through testimony) and an external, artistic gaze placed on that testimony. The illustration shows the testimony as it is perceived by the artist, in a realistic or symbolic way. Two readings become possible: that of the testimony and that of its transcription made by a member of society (the artist). The viewer may agree or not with this representation, intrigued by the content, by the point on which emphasis has been placed or by the deliberate gap with the testimony (sometimes the drawing proposes a reaction, imagined in hindsight, a posteriori, whereas the victim sometimes laments not having known how to react at the time).

Raising awareness to help resilience and to engage in resistance

The approach of the association Archéo-Éthique and the initiative Paye Ta Truelle primarily aims to raise awareness of the problem of sexism and discrimination in archaeology. It shows their existence and their scale. Sexism was for years a “non-issue” in archaeology and yet the situations exposed in the Archéo-Sexisme project are not exceptional. This collective awareness also allows victims to realize that they are not to blame, that they should not be ashamed and that they are not alone. This first step of calling out and raising awareness is crucial because the first obstacle preventing the fight against discrimination in archaeology is the denial of this fact.

Next, the project shows that it is possible to react! Whether one is a victim, witness, or manager (of an operation, laboratory, etc.). This exhibition gives access to others' experiences, so that everyone can take them up in order not to be stunned and unable to react when confronted with such a situation. It is possible to act as an individual (victim or witness) or as a manager or institution to prevent these problems. The last panel of the exhibition thus presents some avenues and solutions to change mentalities and to limit the emergence of deleterious situations. Among them, the charter “Chantier-Éthique” allows the labeling of sites that commit concretely against discrimination and that can thus be identified as such (notably by volunteers when selecting summer fieldwork sites). This label was conceived with and for fieldworkers and operations managers in order to be as adapted as possible to the real needs of the field. This approach aims 1/ to raise participants' awareness to prevent the emergence of problems, 2/ to serve as support for victims, in order to facilitate recognition, verbalization and denunciation of abusive behaviors, 3/ to serve as a tool and support for operations managers or for discrimination officers called upon to manage problematic situations even though they are generally not trained for that.

Presenting women scientists positively and educating is unfortunately not enough. It is also necessary to depict society as it currently is and sometimes to point to where it hurts to provoke change and/or to accelerate ongoing shifts and move beyond “the politics of small steps”. Society is not as we would like it to be and there are many fights to lead, on several fronts. But to tackle the problems, they must first be brought to light; revealed in order to understand them, deconstruct them, and then build another way of living and working together.

Such is the aim of the joint actions of Archéo-Éthique and Paye Ta Truelle : reveal, via the organization of exhibitions, understand and deconstruct, via the organization of conferences or study days (Archéo-Éthique conference, 2018, Paris ; study day Feminisms and Archaeology, 2020, Brussels), to act in resistance and promote resilience and change via awareness-raising actions, organizing moments of discussion and exchange around various events, and the implementation and promotion of tools and solutions.

These actions currently take place mainly in Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland), but the Archéo-Sexisme exhibition is being exported to North America; it should notably be temporarily installed at the University of Montreal. We hope that these extra-European peregrinations will allow continued exploration of the question of discrimination by integrating new experiences and new points of view. The Chantier-Éthique charter, for its part, is intended to go far beyond borders.

Feature image: Archéo-Sexisme exhibition at the Archaeological Museum of Namur (Belgium). Photo by Laura Mary.

Additional resources:

Mary, L., Pasquini, B., & Vandevelde, S. 2019. “Sexism in Archaeology Doesn’t Exist”, Canadian Journal of Bioethics / Revue Canadienne De bioéthique, 2(3), 215-242. Retrieved at: https://cjb-rcb.ca/index.php/cjb-rcb/article/view/215

Pasquini B, Vandevelde S. 2020. “When lockdown reveals the fragile protection of archaeological heritage”, The Conversation, Online: https://theconversation.com/quand-le-confinement-revele-la-fragile-protection-du-patrimoine-archeologique-136866

The proceedings of the Archéo-Éthique conference : https://cjb-rcb.ca/index.php/cjb-rcb/issue/view/5

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[1] even if the participatory approach has many advantages and may be favored by ethnologists.

[2] The term “victims” is here preferred to that of “survivors” so as not to prejudge their reactions and their capacities for resilience or resistance. In the term victim the emphasis is placed on what is endured, a common point among victims, without intending to lock them into a permanent victim position. Among the victims of discrimination there can indeed be survivors, but also people who will never recover. The term “victim” also has the advantage of being gender-neutral.

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