Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to remedy the considerable confusion which continues to surround the analysis of domestic space in archaeology. Bringing together sociological and anthropological insights, it highlights the production of particular configurations of space as integral to the promotion of domestic relationships as ‘associations that matter’. The insights afforded by this shift of emphasis are discussed with reference to the Early Bronze Age of mainland Greece.

Paper long abstract:

The spatial manifestation of domestic relationships has long captured the interest of archaeology and anthropology. Especially for archaeology, the enduring physical remains of domestic life have guaranteed the very feasibility of its study even in the remote prehistory.

That this analysis has proved to be far less straightforward than originally thought is perhaps indicated by the substantial literature spawned by the study of domestic relationships. As the complexity and variability brought forward by anthropological research has seemed to invalidate the simple correlation of the domestic group with a spatial equivalent, then how are we to study archaeologically the spatial dimensions of domestic life?

Acknowledging this problem more as a product of the type of questions asked of the material and of the theoretical background of these questions, this paper attempts to re-orientate analysis of domestic space. Synthesizing anthropological insights, attention is drawn to the processes whereby particular collective forms of life are established as valid (legitimate) and significant frameworks of relationships -as 'associations that matter'. In this sense, the production and reproduction of particular configurations of space become integral to the very sense of groupness implicit in most approaches to the domestic.

The insights afforded by this shift of emphasis are discussed with reference to the Early Bronze Age mainland Greece. Addressing anew the profusion and complexity of domestic architecture, this analysis will hopefully begin to bring to the forefront the ways in which various interventions in the built environment helped to sustain over the period specific notions of 'domesticity'.