An archeology of domination: Historicizing gender and class in early Western state formation

This study provides a theoretical framework for and historical discussion of the construction, legitimation, and institutionalization of domination relations in early Western state formation (paleolithic era to classical Athens). Processes of social differentiation are examined within three societal configurations--Communal/Egalitarian, Kin Corporate/Lineage, and Archaic/Civil State. Societal transformations are shown to result from systemic and processual interactions among ecological, cultural, and technological variables--particularly the politics of sexuality, kinship, and citizenship; militarism; trade/exchange relationships; and cosmological/ideological transformations. Examination of transformations in meaning systems--expressed in cosmologies--is especially crucial for understanding state formation and domination relations because (1) a reorientation of meaning systems invariably accompanies--in order to legitimate--specialization of activities and differentiation of wealth, and (2) the invention of writing accompanies state formation, with significant implications for the power of justificatory ideologies. To facilitate comparisons of meaning systems, three "core-relations" presumed to order the assumptions embedded in cosmologies are developed (intra-subjective, subjective-objective, and inter-subjective). The study describes state formation in the Near Eastern empires and in the Athenian polis, with attention to cosmological alterations legitimating the institution of sexual and socioeconomic hierarchy. Because classical Athenian texts "fixed" the Western tradition's notions of the state and definition of "politics," a fuller understanding of Athenian state formation is critical for contemporary political and social inquiry. In particular, the public-private dichotomy delineated in those texts justified (and thereby also mystified) the fundamentally--but not exclusively--patriarchal foundations of the polis, and by implication, subsequent Western states; failure to acknowledge the patriarchal foundations of the state impairs our understanding of the state, "politics," and domination relations. Further, institutionalization of the dichotomy established not only the politically oppressive division of public and private, but also other dichotomies as naturalized ordering principles. Specifically, the "core-relations" that characterize the Western tradition are hierarchical dichotomies (creativity over procreativity, culture over nature, and autonomy over mutuality) that sustain the dynamics of domination implicit in androcentrism, essentialism, instrumentalism, and elitism. Significantly, these dichotomies are mystified by their embeddedness in the public-private dichotomy still legitimized by the liberal state.