Nomadic Utopias: Gendered Hauntologies in the Representation of Steppe and Gaucho Societies

Drawing on Derrida’s concept of hauntology, this article examines how nomadic societies have been imagined as either hyper-masculine or romantically feminized. Using comparative case studies of Eurasian Steppe sites (Pokrovka, Majiayuan, and Botai) alongside documentary evidence from nineteenth-century Argentine Pampas gaucho communities, this paper demonstrates how the pervasive presence of these gendered spectres continues to shape literary imagination and archaeological interpretation. We investigate how the classificatory apparatus of the sedentary state structures archaeological categories and interpretations of gendered relations within nomadic contexts. While gender archaeology on steppe societies frequently evaluates women’s status through martial participation or exceptional ritual authority, economic, domestic, and military records of the Argentine Pampas demonstrate that women’s social roles and authority emerge through the intersection of multiple domains rather than a single social identity. Further, we show how the classificatory apparatus of the state reduced such complexity to legible categories in a move analogous to contemporary archaeological practice. Instead of asking whether archaeology can recover the ‘true’ nomadic past, this article argues that archaeological interpretation itself continues to re-evoke nomadic spectres. Identifying these persistent hauntologies opens new possibilities for interpreting gender, labour, mobility, and authority beyond sedentary classificatory frameworks.