Lessons from Love-Locks: The archaeology of a contemporary assemblage

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Journal of Material Culture, November 2017, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.Loss of context is a challenge, if not the bane, of the ritual archaeologist’s craft. Those who research ritual frequently encounter difficulties in the interpretation of its often tantalisingly incomplete material record. Careful analysis of material remains may afford us glimpses into past ritual activity, but our often vast chronological separation from the ritual practitioners themselves prevent us from seeing the whole picture. The archaeologist engaging with structured deposits, for instance, is often forced to study ritual assemblages post-accumulation. Many nuances of its formation, therefore, may be lost in interpretation. This paper considers what insights an archaeologist could gain into the place, people, pace, and purpose of deposition by recording an accumulation of structured deposits during its formation, rather than after. To answer this, the paper will focus on a contemporary depositional practice: the love-lock. This custom involves the inscribing of names/initials onto a padlock, its attachment to a bridge or other public structure, and the deposition of the corresponding key into the water below; a ritual often enacted by a couple as a statement of their romantic commitment. Drawing on empirical data from a three-year diachronic site-specific investigation into a love-lock bridge in Manchester, UK, the author demonstrates the value of contemporary archaeology in engaging with the often enigmatic material culture of ritual accumulations.Peer reviewe

Making feminist heritage work:Gender and heritage

In this chapter I examine the ways in which a feminist approach to heritage and heritage studies can be used to illuminate particular gendered processes: processes that include attentiveness to the gendered curation, protection, preservation and commemoration of the past. In doing so, I examine selected studies and perspectives that may be helpful in framing heritage research around questions of sexuality and gender, as well as suggesting what additional forms of analysis, methodologies, theoretical approaches and conceptualizations feminist theory can bring to heritage studies. In bringing together gender with heritage, I argue that these are generally structured around four broad areas of enquiry. First, there is the question of gender in relation to heritage in terms of what one might broadly term ‘representation’, understood in terms of heritage collections, sites and performances. Second, there is work framed around gender and heritage from the perspective of consumption – defined as encounters with heritage by educators, visitors and tourists. Third, there are questions of gender focusing on production, usually in terms of a concern with the gendering of workplace structures, curatorial practices and heritage management conducted by those outside particular heritage institutions as well as on the inside. Finally, there are issues of gender in relation to local and national heritage policies, as well as international protocol and convention. In the chapter’s concluding section, I suggest briefly what areas within heritage studies require further work from a gendered perspective and what areas are undergoing transformations that require us to rethink gendered approaches and paradigms. The chapter begins with a brief critical history that seeks to reclaim some of the earlier and more obscured history of gendered approaches to heritage