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The “arenas of struggle” of peasant agency in early medieval times: a theoretical and archaeological approach

  • Carlos Tejerizo García

The main aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities and limits of the application of the concept of agency to tackle early medieval peasant-based societies. While this concept has achieved great success in archaeology since the 1980s onwards, it has rarely been applied for medieval contexts. However, recent historiographical developments and approaches within medieval archaeology invite to consider its applicability to expand our understanding of this social group. Through two case studies located in central Iberia considering the emergence and development of post-Roman peasant-based societies, I will argue that an archaeology of peasant agency during early medieval times is not only possible, but also necessary in order to overcome overoptimistic and biased approaches to these societies. Furthermore, it will be argued that this archaeology depends on the complex analysis of the relationship between agency and structure and the detection of those “arenas of struggle” through which the agency of different social groups are displayed.

  • Keywords:
  • Peasant-based societies,
  • structure,
  • settlement pattern,
  • Iberian Peninsula materiality,
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Carlos Tejerizo García

University of Salamanca, Spain - ORCID: 0000-0001-9479-2720

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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

The “arenas of struggle” of peasant agency in early medieval times: a theoretical and archaeological approach

Authors

Carlos Tejerizo García

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7.08

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Local Societies and Peasantry Agencies in Medieval Iberia

Editors

Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

304

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0562-7

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979-12-215-0561-0

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979-12-215-0562-7

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979-12-215-0564-1

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Reti Medievali E-Book

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2704-6362

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2704-6079

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