Micro-Economics of the Rural Romano-Egyptian Household

This project explores the micro-economics of the rural, Romano-Egyptian household. Documentary archives and published archaeological materials from the villages of Roman Egypt provide us with a unique insight into rural life and the structuring of rural communities in the Roman imperial period. These records allow detailed archival exploration into family structures. In my research, I intend to apply 'livelihood' and 'life-course' approaches from anthropology and developmental economics in order to understand the dynamics of household formation and the workings of power within households. I argue that rural Romano-Egyptian households adopted strategies to ensure annual and generational socio-economic reproduction, in accordance with environmental constraints. Such strategies required shrewd household management in order to adapt to dynamic and uncertain environments. Particular concerns were mortality and reproduction, agricultural production and risk management, and shifting political and economic contexts, ca. 30 BC - ca. AD 400. The micro-history approach enabled by the documentary and archaeological records allows a consideration of internal household dynamics and the network of social relations within and beyond the villages which provided community resilience and reinforced community values within a colonial environment. The focus on household dynamics requires a consideration of gender and power relations within rural communities. Further, Egyptian rural society was far from unchanging in this period: urban developments, the commercialisation of farming, new Roman taxation systems, and changing cultural values (as manifested within religious systems for instance) all affected rural society. This approach deploys evidence otherwise unparalleled from the Roman imperial period to write history upwards from individual social interactions towards the wider community. In turn, my research offers historical and comparative perspectives to key issues in modern development theory, livelihood research, and social economics. These issues often focus on the resilience of the household in the face of structural social and economic change in rural societies.