Barbara Voss | |
---|---|
Born | 1967 (age 55–56) |
Occupation(s) | Archaeologist, academic |
Awards | Ruth Benedict Prize |
Academic background | |
Education | |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Historical archaeology |
Institutions | Stanford University |
Barbara L. Voss (born 1967) is an American historical archaeologist. Her work focuses on cross-cultural encounters,particularly the Spanish colonization of the Americas and Overseas Chinese communities in the 19th century,as well as queer theory in archaeology and gender archaeology. She is an associate professor of anthropology at Stanford University.
Voss graduated with a BA from Stanford University in 1988,where she earned the Michelle Rosaldo Prize for Research in Feminist Anthropology (1987),the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence (1986,1987),and the Boothe Prize (1986). [1] In 2002,after working as a field archaeologist for some years,she obtained a PhD from the University of California,Berkeley. Her dissertation was entitled The Archaeology of El Presidio de San Francisco:Culture Contact,Gender,and Ethnicity in a Spanish-colonial Military Community. [2]
Since 2001,Voss has taught at Stanford. [1]
During 1987-1996 Voss was employed in cultural resource management,conducting prehistoric and historic archaeological studies and environmental reviews. [3] Voss's early research focused on both the Spanish colonization of the Americas,as well as gender and sexuality studies. [4] In her work on the Spanish-colonial military settlement of El Presidio de San Francisco,Voss showed how the regulation of sex was an important part of Spanish colonization. [5] In 2008,Voss was a recipient of the Ruth Benedict Prize,for her book,The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis:Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco. In 2000,she and Robert Schmidt won the prize for the edited anthology,Archaeologies of Sexuality. The Ruth Benedict is awarded each year by the American Anthropological Association for the best scholarly book written from an anthropological perspective about a lesbian,gay,bisexual,or transgender topic. [6]
Voss's current work focuses on 19th century migration to the United States from southern China. Since 2002,Voss has served as the director of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project,a community archaeology project investigating a historical Overseas Chinese enclave in San Jose,California. She also the Director of Archaeology for a multidisciplinary study,the Chinese Railroad Workers of North America Project. [7]
In her work on Chinatowns,Voss has critiqued a tendency toward Orientalism in previous scholarship,in which Chinese immigrants are seen as always engaged in the a conflict between a 'traditional' East and a 'modern' West. Questioning the stereotype of Chinatowns as insular and traditional,she has argued that this assumption has limited conclusions about these communities to questions of assimilation and acculturation. For Voss,the boundaries between Chinatowns and their surrounding communities have always been fluid,with close interactions between Chinese and non-Chinese residents. [8] Voss has also argued for a transpacific archaeology which traces the global connections between Chinatowns in the Americas,other Overseas Chinese communities,and China. [9]
In March 2021,Voss published a two-article series calling harassment an “epidemic”in archaeology and proposing that public health models could prevent further harassment from occurring. [10]
She is a member of the Editorial Board for American Antiquity . [11]
In early 2016,Voss established 'Archaeologists for a Just Future',a Facebook-based advocacy group encouraging archaeologists to participate in the presidential campaign. In November 2016,Voss stepped down as a group moderator. The group name was subsequently changed to 'Archaeologists for a Just Future'. The group currently has over 5,900 members. [12]
The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south. Their territory included three of the Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel; the smaller island of Anacapa was likely inhabited seasonally due to the lack of a consistent water source.
The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinese enclaves within San Francisco. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that has retained its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity. There are two hospitals, several parks and squares, numerous churches, a post office, and other infrastructure. Recent immigrants, many of whom are elderly, opt to live in Chinatown because of the availability of affordable housing and their familiarity with the culture. San Francisco's Chinatown is also renowned as a major tourist attraction, drawing more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge.
Feminist archaeology employs a feminist perspective in interpreting past societies. It often focuses on gender, but also considers gender in tandem with other factors, such as sexuality, race, or class. Feminist archaeology has critiqued the uncritical application of modern, Western norms and values to past societies. It is additionally concerned with increasing the representation of women in the discipline of archaeology, and reducing androcentric bias within the field.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio ranchera, medical practitioner, and merchant, often remembered as the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", for her noted involvement in the early development of the city of San Francisco. Later in her life, she also played an important role in developing modern Palo Alto.
Gayle S. Rubin is an American cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia, pornography and lesbian literature, as well as anthropological studies and histories of sexual subcultures, especially focused in urban contexts. Her 1984 essay "Thinking Sex" is widely regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies, sexuality studies, and queer theory. She is an associate professor of anthropology and women's studies at the University of Michigan.
José Francisco Ortega was an indigenous Californio soldier and early settler of Alta California. He joined the military at the age of twenty-one and rose to the rank of sergeant by the time he joined the Portola expedition in 1769. At the end of his military duty he would be granted land which he named Rancho Nuestra Senora del Refugio near Santa Barbara.
Juana Maria, better known to history as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, was a Native Californian woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived alone on San Nicolas Island off the coast of Alta California from 1835 until her removal from the island in 1853. Scott O'Dell's award-winning children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) was inspired by her story. She was the last native speaker of the Nicoleño language.
Mary Bucholtz is professor of linguistics at UC Santa Barbara. Bucholtz's work focuses largely on language use in the United States, and specifically on issues of language and youth; language, gender, and sexuality; African American English; and Mexican and Chicano Spanish.
Judith Ann Bense is an American academic, Florida historical archaeologist, and a former president of the University of West Florida. She is also the chairwoman of the Florida Historical Commission at the University of West Florida, she served as a faculty member and department chair in the anthropology program, which she started at the school. In 2008, she started her 7-year term as president of the university. Prior to this, she was the executive director of anthropology and archaeology at UWF. During her career, she was fundamental in drafting the legislation to create the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN).
Nels Christian Nelson was a Danish-American archaeologist.
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology, history or geography.
Olga Francesca Linares was a Panamanian–American academic anthropologist and archaeologist, and senior staff scientist (emerita) at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, who have supported much of her research throughout her career. She is well known for her work on the cultural ecology of Panama, and more recently in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal. She is also concerned with the social organization of agrarian systems as well as the relationship between "ecology, political economy, migration and the changing dynamics of food production among rural peoples living in tropical regions".
Mark James Hudson is a British archaeologist interested in multicultural Japan. His initial areas of specialization were the Jōmon period and the Yayoi period. His later research has focused on areas of Japan outside state control, primarily islands and mountains. He excavated the Nagabaka site on Miyako Island.
The archaeology of religion and ritual is a growing field of study within archaeology that applies ideas from religious studies, theory and methods, anthropological theory, and archaeological and historical methods and theories to the study of religion and ritual in past human societies from a material perspective.
Hannah Marie Wormington was an American archaeologist known for her writings and fieldwork on southwestern and Paleo-Indians archaeology over a long career that lasted almost sixty years.
San Jose, California has been home to five Chinatowns that existed until the 1930s:
Kathleen K. Gilmore was an American archaeologist and specialist on Spanish colonial archaeology. She was the first archaeologist to prove the location of Fort St. Louis, established by the French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. She received the J. C. Harrington Award of Society for Historical Archaeology in 1995, the first woman ever honored by the society.
Evelyn Blackwood is an American anthropologist whose research focuses on gender, sexuality, identity, and kinship. She was awarded the Ruth Benedict Prize in 1999, 2007 and 2011. Blackwood is an emerita professor of anthropology at Purdue University.
Maria Franklin is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a historical archaeologist whose work includes black-feminist theory, African Diaspora studies and race and gender.