Staff
Dr Eva Alarcon
Eva is a post-doctoral research associate from the Ministry of Education (Spain). Her research interests include gender archaeology, and her attention is focused especially on women’s technology and maintenance activities, and the archaeology of childhood with special attention to processes of learning and socialisation. Other interests include archaeological methodology and studies of material culture. She has carried out archaeological fieldwork in different sites in the south of Iberia.
The concept of maintenance activities began to be used in the context of Spanish archaeology at the end of the twentieth century. Its development has continued in the twenty-first century and has even begun to be used in other academic traditions. Initially inspired by gender archaeology claims to correct ‘the appalling absence of concepts that tap women’s experience’, the concept of maintenance activities encompasses a set of practices and experiences concerning the sustenance, welfare and long-term reproduction of the members of a social group. They enclose the basic activities of quotidian life that convey social cohesion to human groups and make their life possible. Basically conformed by care giving, feeding and food processing, weaving and cloth manufacture, hygiene, public health and healing, socialisation of children and conditioning and organisation of domestic space, they operate in a specific framework of interpersonal social relationships.
Other interests include:
- archaeological methodology
- archaeological theory
- domestic technologies
- material culture (Bronze Age)
Publications
Books: sections
- Sánchez Romero, Margarita & Alarcón García, Eva (Published). “Lo que los niños nos cuentan: individuos infantiles durante la Edad del Bronce en el sur de la Península Ibérica”. In Niños en la antigüedad. Estudios sobre la infancia en el Mediterráneo antiguo. Justel Vicente, Daniel Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza. 57-97.
- Sánchez Romero, Margarita, Aranda Jiménez, Gonzalo & Alarcón García, Eva (2009). Gender and age identities in the commensality ritual of Argaric societies. In Interpreting household practices: reflections on the social and cultural roles of maintenance activities. 69-89.
Essays in edited volumes
- Alarcón García, Eva (2011). Introduction. In Appetite comes with eating: an overview of the social meaning of ritual food and drink consumption. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Commensality Rituals in the Prehistoric Societies of Europe and the Near East. Aranda Jiménez, Gonzalo, Montón Subías, Sandra, Sánchez Romero, Margarita & Alarcón García, Eva Oxbow Books. 1-7.
- Alarcón García, Eva & Sánchez Romero, Margarita (2010). Maintenance activities an analysis category for Analysing Prehistoric Societies. In Situating Gender in European Archaeologies. 261-282.
Journal papers: academic
- Alarcón García, Eva (Published). Teoría y método: Arqueología de mujeres y las relaciones de género en la Edad del Bronce del sureste de la Península Ibérica. Arkeogazte 2: 35-55.
- Aranda Jiménez, Gonzalo, Alarcón García, Eva, Murillo Barroso, Mercedes, Montero Ruíz, Ignacio, Jiménez Broebil, Sylvia, Sánchez Romero, Margarita & Rodríguez Ariza, Olivia (2012). El Yacimiento argárico del Cerro de San Cristóbal (Ogíjares, Granada). Menga 3: 3-26.
- Aranda Jiménez, Gonzalo, Montón Subías, Sandra, Sánchez Romero, Margarita & Alarcón García, Eva (2009). Death and everyday life: the Argaric societies from Southeast Spain. Journal of Social Archaeology 2(9): 139-162.
