Profile in SPAN Magazine

"Fulbright grantee Gwen Kelly is analyzing beads, bangles and pottery pieces from the 2,000-year-old Kadebakele excavation site in Karnataka to discover how and why economic and social connections changed in that ancient society. Preparing her Ph.D. thesis for the University of Wisconsin, Kelly has also lectured, in Tamil, to students at the Tamil University in Thanjavur and has founded the International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia. A talk on her research is scheduled at Fulbright House in New Delhi on July 31. www.iawawsa.org"

This is the profile of me in SPAN Magazine, the U.S. State Department in India's monthly magazine. It's short, and not entirely accurate. But oh well. The photo is indeed from the site of Kadebakele, in Karnataka, though that's not where I do my primary research. Also Kadebakele is much more than 2000 years old, it's at least 3000 years old. At least they got the name of IAWAWSA out there, along with the URL. Plus the magazine is online, and the piece about me can be found here.

It started in June when someone from the magazine contacted me and said they do a series on Fulbrighters, and they'd like to do a profile on me. Below is the (abridged) email correspondance that went into producing this piece.

In order to give my readers the kind of information that might have been in the profile (that I sort of hoped would be in the profile), I'm attaching an abridged version of the email correspondance here. In these emails I tried to explain what it is that I do, and why it's important. I am mildly annoyed with the magazine for the briefness and the inaccuracy, but my reason for putting up this email correspondance isn't to accuse them of anything. I understand they probably only planned a one-paragraph short profile anyway, and that's fine. But because I spent a significant amount of time writing these emails, trying to put what I do in to a non-academic, non-jargony framework, I thought maybe that effort shouldn't go to waste. What I wrote about myself and my work might still be of some use and interest to people, even if it didn't get printed in the magazine.

Dear Mr. Y,

I am honored that you have asked, and I would be happy to appear in
your magazine. I am attaching my CV, which may give you some
additional information about my background.

I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was 7 years old. I became
interested in South Asia while studying in my first year of my
bachelors degree. I first came to India in 2001 as a volunteer on an
excavation in Rajasthan. Starting during my undergraduate studies, I
was most intensely interested in South India, and this led me to study
Tamil language intensively both in the US and in India, and focus my
research interest in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. I have worked
on archaeological projects in these three states as well as in
Rajasthan.

My dissertation research developed because of my interest in the
connection between society and economy. It became clear after reading
about the Iron Age and Early Historic periods in South India, that
there still is no consensus about the nature of social and economic
organization over this long time period, or how it changed. In order
to begin to address this question, I decided to focus on a site that
had already been excavated. The site is Kodumanal, located in Erode
District, Tamil Nadu, near the foothills of the Western Ghats. This
site is important, and useful for trying to understand social and
economic organization because there is evidence that people at the
site were involved in the production of beads and ornaments in
semi-precious stones, and that they were linked to the Indian Ocean
and Roman trade in the Early Centuries AD. By analyzing the
archaeological materials, beads, pottery, shell and glass bangles,
etc., I am hoping to be able to reconstruct aspects of the social and
economic organization of the time. In addition to looking at
artifacts, my methodologies also include interviewing modern potters
about their craft and techniques, and conducting experiments in the
manufacture of all of these crafts, to better understand how they were
made in the past. This understanding of technology, and the different
stages of production can tell us how that production can be organized
in different ways, reflecting aspects of social and economic control
or exploitation.

In addition to my research, I have also started an organization, the
International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South
Asia (www.iawawsa.org). The organization is inclusive of both women
and men, but aims at supporting and encouraging women to pursue
careers in archaeology in South Asia. The goal of the organization is
to promote women's rights and equality in the workplace and the
professional domain of archaeology. One aspect of this is to connect
researchers from both inside and outside South Asia who share research
interests. It is an international network with members currently in
seven countries, both in South Asia and abroad.

As for the picture, unfortunately most of the time I am holding the
camera, and there aren't that many pictures of me doing my work.
There are a few pictures of me taken by others, and one in particular
that I'm thinking of, and I will contact them to see if they are
willing to have that picture published. I assume they will say yes,
but I want to make sure first.

Please let me know if you have any other questions, or would like a
longer or more detailed description of my work. I tried to be brief,
but I really don't know what you are looking for. So do let me know if
there is anything else I can tell you.

Best,
Gwen Kelly

Dear Gwen,

The editor and the studio has approved the photo quality and thanks for the additional info. The editor wants to know more about your work here on your current Fulbright and what are you doing at the university or with them.

Thanks again for your patience and time.

Best.

Y

Dear Y,

It would really help if you (or the editor) could ask specific questions. I don't know what to say in regards to "more about my work on my current Fulbright". In what way more?

I am primarily based in Thanjavur, and my work is mostly here, looking at artifacts, pottery, beads, etc, from their storage room. It is very meticulous and slow work. It doesn't sound as glorious or exciting as most of what people hear about archaeology. But it's the kind of work that really produces the data that allows us to take what is found from excavations, and make something meaningful out of it.

As for what I'm doing at or with the Tamil University: I am doing my research independently, with the help of one student research assistant. In addition, I taught a short course on Archaeological Method and Theory to the Masters, M. Phil and some of the Ph.D. students. The lectures were in Tamil.

If you want more, it would really help to have some specific questions. Or perhaps this would be best done by phone. If you want to, you or the editor or whoever, is welcome to call me.

Best,

Gwen

Hello Gwen,

Wondering if you received the attached mail I forwarded to you by the Editor.

Thanks.

Y

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: L
To: Y
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 11:16:14 +0530
Subject: RE: Fulbrighters in India

Thanks, Gwen for the additional information.

1) Once you look at the artifacts, then what? Do you note things down about them? What do you note down? How will what you have observed and recorded be used? Who will use it? For what?

2) 2) Regarding your research, what are you researching? (theme, focus, aim, etc.?) Will you be producing a paper? If so, for whom? A lecture? If so for whom?

3) Thanks again. And great picture.

Hi Y,

Actually, I didn't get that email forwarded. I am just seeing it now. So here goes:

1) Once you look at the artifacts, then what? Do you note things down about them? What do you note down? How will what you have observed and recorded be used? Who will use it? For what?

Looking at artifacts involves looking at a lot of details. I have several databases which I designed, which allow me to enter data about each sherd of pottery, or each bead, or each bangle. For pottery, for each piece, I record the diameter of the mouth of the pot, the maximum diameter (if possible), the height of the rim, the thickness of the rim, the angle of the rim, the color on the exterior and interior, the surface - whether it's polished or not, if there is any decoration, what kind of decoration is there, and finally assign it to a shape or vessel category. I have defined about 100 categories of kinds of things (modern equivalents would be soup bowls, pasta bowls, cereal bowls, saucers, salad plates, dinner plates, creamers and sugar bowls).

This data gets collected for several thousand pieces of pottery, and then it can be analyzed by separating and combining different elements, including where it was found in the site, how deep/old it is, and all these various kinds of data I collect. This allows me to compare how many bowls there are compared with how many cooking pots in a given area of the site. It also allows me to look at fine-grained change over time in things like the shapes of vessels, the angles of the rims, the sizes that they come in. For instance, modern plates are standardized, even between different brands and producers, there is a standard size for a dinner plate. With smaller non-industrial producers we can see this as a process, standardization over time is considered an indicator of increasing scale of production. The less a person makes pots, the more irregular they are likely to be. The more they make pots, the more regular and standardized in their shapes and sizes.

In addition to pottery, I also collect similar kinds of attributes for beads, bangles, spindle whorls, and other artifacts. All this data is combined together, and analyzed using basic statistics, looking at different proportions of things, how those proportions change over time, etc. These kinds of patterns, whether they are patterns in space, or in time, at the site are the basis of interpretations. Using a set of theories and models about people, with different forms of social and economic organization, I then interpret those patterns to try to answer questions about how many different groups of potters might there have been at the site of Kodumanal, how much time were they spending making pottery? Each of those questions has implications in the larger interpretation of how the society and economy were organized, and how that organization changed over time.

I then take those data and interpretations, and write them into my doctoral dissertation, and into articles that will be published in journals in India and the US.

2) Regarding your research, what are you researching? (theme, focus, aim, etc.?) Will you be producing a paper? If so, for whom? A lecture? If so for whom?

The goal is to try to understand aspects of the social and economic organization at the site of Kodumanal, and in South India in general, during the period spanning the last few centuries BCE and the first few centuries of the Common Era. As a means to understanding society and economy, I'm focusing particularly on technologies of production, since techniques and technologies of production directly relate to the organization of production, and the society that they were produced for. Technology relates to both production and consumption, and it helps us identify different aspects of who was producing something like pottery, and who - meaning different groups or sectors of society - was consuming it.

I will be writing my PhD thesis, and submitting it to my academic advisor and committee at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, as well as producing papers for publication. I also will be giving lectures and conference presentations. In the near future, I'll be giving a short presentation on my research to the members of my organization - IAWAWSA - at our first ever meeting in India, which will be held on July 31st, 2010, at Fulbright House in New Delhi. I will present the results of this work at other conferences, wherever and whenever they are held around the world.

3) Thanks again. And great picture.

Glad you like it. :)

The Fight for Equality Goes On

I used to think Feminism was finished. That we were done with it. Not because it was irrelevant, but because I thought it had achieved its purpose, and was no longer really necessary. I was of this opinion by about age 15, when in high school, in Berkeley, California, as far as I could tell, women were equal to men, boys to girls. Pretty much every adult woman I knew had a career, had achieved as much if not more than some of the adult men I knew. Kids in school seemed equal, and so through the lens of that very limited (and perhaps rose-tinted) glass, it seemed to me feminism was no longer needed.

I was aware of feminism at the age of 15, because my mother was a feminist scholar and writer, someone who thought about and had written about gendered inequalities for most of her adult life. But at that point in my own life, I just didn't see the point. Why make such a big deal? Women were feminists, they had fought for equality, for their right to vote, to own property, to make decisions about their own bodies and health. Women had fought, and won. Or at least so it seemed to me.

It took me a long time to realize that although this might be true, in limited contexts, severe inequalities still exist for women in many other places. Of course by college I had heard of the Taliban, and of various other forms of discrimination in America and around the world. But I had never really confronted it face to face. I don't think it really hit home until I came to India for the first time in 2001. By that time I had read enough anthropology about India, and Indian culture and society to be at least somewhat prepared for the gender bias that permeates most of Indian society. Here the bias against women persists across boundaries of language, religion, social status, across pretty much every barrier that divides Indian society.

I don't want to reiterate a large body of academic (and non-academic) work on gender relations, roles, and inequalities in South Asia. For those that are interested, I'll put a few suggested readings at the bottom of this post.

Women's education and literacy still lag behind men. Women, even Ph.D. educated ones, are frequently expected to give up careers in order to marry and have children. The feminine role of wife and mother is one where frequently little compromise is allowed. I don't want to paint an entirely dire picture. These things are changing somewhat, and bit by bit, young women are being allowed (the key word: allowed) to pursue both a career and motherhood. This is not made easy, since facilities like daytime and after school child care are extraordinarily hard to find. Women may sometimes be far more educated than their husbands, with career and earning prospects higher than their husbands, but family and culture dictate that she should stay home, and the husband work or pursue his goals. I had this discussion just the other day with an educated and intelligent woman, married into an especially conservative household here in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. She told me her in-laws (with whom she now lives in a joint family) don't allow her to sit on chairs. Men sit on chairs, and women are expected to sit on the floor. She works at a shop which is owned and managed by her husband's family. She isn't allowed to pursue a real career based on what she studied. She is not allowed to leave the house by herself, without a male relative as a chaperon.

In the university where I am conducting my research, there are many young women students. But only one woman in the department faculty. Most of the students will never get the chance to pursue archaeology as a career.

Women are also, to varying extents, viewed as sexual objects, and not as equals and human beings. They are subject to harassment in public spaces: groping, grabbing, lewd comments. This is horrifyingly and surprisingly common. It varies to some extent from North to South, with less harassment in South India than the North, but still is present everywhere. This is not even to mention the frequency of rape, domestic abuse, and more serious forms of sexual abuse.

Indian women are not the only victims of this harassment. All women are subjected to it. I have personally been groped, had my breast grabbed, been cat-called, whistled at, had men expose their genitals to me, listened to innumerable inappropriate comments, attempts to kiss me, solicit me, and 'seduce' me. I have heard stories told by women whose experiences were worse than that.

I guess if you've been reading this blog up until now, maybe you'll realize where this post is going. Recently I started an organization: IAWAWSA, the International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia. In my last post on the subject, I talked a bit about the goals of the organization, but didn't go into much detail as to why I decided to start it. The above issues in contemporary Indian society affect both Indian women and foreigners like myself. I wanted to start an organization to support women, and their career goals, to support research conducted by women, and to bridge the gap between different nationalities, to talk about the issues of gender bias that we all have in common.

It turns out there is still a need for feminism, for empowerment. Still a need for equality.

So now that I've talked about some of the issues and challenges that women still face in India, in the realm of equality, rights and freedoms, I want to address some points about what I want IAWAWSA to become.

The gender bias that exists in India is systemic. It is pretty much across-the-board. And if it is going to change, it needs to be confronted and challenged from all possible angles. I did not start an organization to give micro-finance loans to women-run businesses (though if you want to do that I recommend Kiva.org), and I don't belong to an NGO. There are plenty of those. I started an organization that I hope will help the people I know, women archaeologists, and simultaneously help further research in subjects I think are important.

Ultimately I do hope to be able to offer funding, scholarships and grants to women to do research and pursue their careers. But at the moment we are an organization that offers a less material form of support. We can offer the support and encouragement to each other as peers, and as mentors. We can offer the support of opportunities to learn, opportunities to do fieldwork, opportunities to conduct research. Until we have the funding to offer financial support, we will conduct conferences, seminars, and have meetings to get to know each other. We can develop more specific initiatives as we go along and gain in membership.

This brings me to my last conundrum. I started this organization with the express and specific purpose of helping women in a struggle for equality. The struggle is waged at both the level of colleges and universities, but also, and most importantly in the wider social context. I want to support women. I want to empower women. I want to have an organization FOR women. But the "for" does not necessarily imply that it is exclusively made up of women.

Exclusion based on gender is part of the problem. Excluding women from joining groups, being able to participate in a wide variety of activities a huge part of the problem. To exclude men would not solve anything. It would, it seems to me, just strengthen the divide between men and women, and create an atmosphere of hostility, rather than cooperation.

Civil rights for African Americans in the US were not won by organizations that discriminated against whites because they were not part of the category those organizations were created to help. A gay rights group is still a gay rights group, even if straight people join. And a group like IAWAWSA is still a group to support and empower women, even if men join.

In fact we need men to join. We need men to understand the problem. If the society as a whole is going to change, as it needs to for women to become equals, the change has to come from everyone. Women alone can't change the system. Not only would it be hypocritical to exclude men based on their gender, it would be counter-productive to our overall goal.

It has recently been suggested to me that if men are allowed join IAWAWSA that would change the nature of the organization. That would make it an organization FOR everyone. It would change everything. I strongly disagree . The stated purpose, the raison d'être of the organization, to support and empower women in the profession of archaeology, and it need not change if men are members. To the contrary, I think that male membership will strengthen the organization, and demonstrate that we are all equals.

I don't really expect many men to join IAWAWSA, but if they want to, if they want to support the cause of equality, and empower women to pursue careers and research, then I think that's wonderful. It gives me hope that more men will come to see the value and importance of equality. The sooner that happens the sooner the system will change.

I am curious though how you, my readers, feel about this issue: so I have a short poll here to find out what you all think.








Suggested (and very selected) readings:

Bumiller, Elizabeth (1990) May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons. New York: Random House Books.

Jeffrey, Patricia (1979, 2000 reprint) Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah. Delhi: Manohar.

Desai, Neera and Maithreyi Krishnaraj (2004) An Overview of the Status of Women in India. In: M. Mohanty (ed.), Caste, Class, Gender: Readings in Indian Government and Politics (pp. 296-319). London: Sage Publications.

IAWAWSA: International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia

In September, on a whim, I decided to start a new organization. The International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia -- or IAWAWSA for short. It wasn't an idea that I spent a very long time thinking about explicitly before I decided to try to make it a reality.

I came up with the idea, when, after a series of scares relating to my permissions and visa to do research in India, I found myself contacting and relying on a knowledge and support network of my fellow women archaeologists working in South Asia. I also realized, that in addition to my advisor and faculty at my own university, I had in some capacity for many years relied on my own network of friends and adviser-ly figures, who were, either by accident or design, primarily women. The thought suddenly occurred to me that maybe we should have a formal association.

Once the thought struck, it also stuck in my brain. I couldn't stop thinking about what an organization might be like, and what it could do. It was such an exciting idea, I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I decided to just start it up, first with a Facebook group (an easy way to get a bunch of people to belong), and then by creating a website.

As for what the organization can do, and what I hope it will do, the goals are as follows:

1. To be a support and information network of women scholars at all stages of their career. To help encourage women to pursue archaeology in South Asia, and to empower them do so, by creating mentoring relationships, and giving support.
2. To provide a forum for discussing the issues that women face in conducting archaeological research in South Asia.
3. To promote research (especially by women) in archaeology in South Asia by:

a) Providing forums to discuss research, such as meetings, workshops, conferences, and publications.

b) To foster international collaboration between scholars from around the world with interests in the archeology of South Asia, especially to bridge the divide between the countries of South Asia, and foreigners who come from countries outside South Asia.

c) Offering grants and fellowships to scholars, to support research, travel, and writing, which we hope will also have the effect of empowering women to continue to pursue archaeology and archaeological research.

It turns out, that creating an organization such as the one I outlined above, with goals as grand in scale, as the ones outlined above, takes a LOT of work.

I am just now beginning the process of filing for non-profit/tax exempt status for IAWAWSA under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. This is an unbelievable amount of work, and I'm just beginning to realize how much it's going to take to get to the point where I can even *begin* to raise the funds that I want, in order to do the things I want to do.

It's incredibly daunting, but perhaps that's the point the IRS is trying to make. They don't want to make it easy for organizations that may have a lot of money at some point in the future, do anything to evade taxes, if they don't have to.

Forms galore to be filled in, in addition to a lot of "supporting documents". To name a few, we need "articles of incorporation", by-laws, statements regarding our policies for non-discrimination, a "narrative description of the activities, past, present, and future" of the organization, policies for employment, policies for nominating officers, board members, trustees. We need policies for how we will obtain funding, and for what we will do with it. We need policies stating what criteria we will use in giving out grants and funding. The list goes on and on. And the truth is, I'm a) not a lawyer, b) have no clue how to write most of this stuff, and c) have no idea how to lay out clearly and effectively such things as what criteria we should use to select to whom we should award grants and fellowships.

In addition, I need to fund-raise the $400 filing fee to become a non-profit, and yet, seem somehow prohibited from fund-raising without yet being a non-profit organization. And all this immense amount of work that goes into the filing, is just the beginning. Once we have the letter granting exemption under the 510(c)(3) code, then the REAL work will begin, to write grant proposals and solicit donations, to raise funds for the organization DO all the things I hope it will some day do.

As much as this organization is becoming a method of sometimes procrastinating the other "real" work I have to do, which is my own research and writing towards the completion of my Ph.D., working on developing IAWAWSA is always simultaneously a source of motivation to do my own work. I can hardly be the spearhead/founder/director of an organization for women archaeologists, if I can't successfully become one myself. So each time I sit down and work on the organization, I also end up feeling more motivated to get my own work done. So that in the future, not only can I continue to pursue my own research interests, but I can help others pursue their goals as well.

(Note: In a future post I will discuss some of the reasons why this organization is needed. Why, especially, in a period in which the status of women seems better than it's ever been, this organization still has something to contribute. I will present some of my anthropological/sociological observations on gender in academia, especially in academia in Indian institutions, and the prospects of women in India and other countries in South Asia who aspire to do archaeology.)