Microhistories of an invisible punishment. For an archaeology of sexual exploitation in Spain

This article collects the preliminary results of the SEXLAVES project focused on the archaeological study of the materialities generated by the sexual exploitation of women in the northwest of Spain. Using landscape archaeology and the archaeology of architecture, we study ruined brothels that were in use between the 1980s and the 2000s. These archaeological remains show in all their crudeness the impunity of a mafia and criminal business that it is based on the kidnapping, coercion and control of women. This archaeology of the recent past makes public spaces originally intended to be made invisible, searches for the material trace of women who are truly socially disappeared, and denounces a model of capitalist predation that exploits bodies, landscapes and territories in the same way.

Archaeology of the recent past. Sexual exploitation. Brothels. Gender violence. Archaeology of architecture.