ABSTRACT
Early studies in household archaeology defined the household primarily according to its economic functions (production, distribution, and transmission) (Netting et al. 1984; Wilk and Netting 1984; Wilk and Rathje 1982). While the domestic economy continues to be an important field of study and central to understanding local as well as broader economic processes, we now recognize that households can be variably defined. In studying the Zumbagua household in the Ecuadorian Andes, for example, Weismantel (1989:69) argued that households could not be defined according to their economic activities but instead were “a constituted process, made up of activities ranging from the mundane tasks of making breakfast to the critical social undertaking of making and raising a baby.” Of course, while households must be studied and defined according to context (Ashmore and Wilk 1988:5), Weismantel’s study is important because it undermines the assumption that households must be economically functional entities, and because it highlights the significance of social interactions – households in Zumbagua are constituted through the daily sharing of meals and the raising of children, not the production of food or transmission of property. Since the household is defined by social relations and interactions, it is never fixed but is constantly transforming.
