Falling Out with the In-Laws. Understanding the Babatha Archive with Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory and Theory of Practice.

Abstract This article is one in a special issue of the Journal of Ancient History , “Social Biographies of the Ancient World.” It forms one of the “case study” chapters regarding a Judean woman by the name of Babatha. Babatha is known to us because of the discovery in 1961 of what was probably one of her most precious belongings, which was found in a cave overlooking the Naḥal Ḥever Canyon: a leather pouch that contained some 35 legal documents. Labelled Papyri Yadin 1–35, they contain a wide range of legal acts consigned in Greek, Aramaic and Nabatean Aramaic, including marriage contracts, land deeds, deeds of gift and ruthless litigation between kin, all unfolding between 94 and 132 CE. While Babatha's story has been well-known in the field of biblical studies ever since the papyri were discovered, the contribution of social scientists has largely been absent. It is against this background that we use Bourdieu's theoretical framework to reflect on Babatha's agency in the complex socio-legal landscape she navigates. This article employs field theory to link Babatha's litigation to the conflictual social processes accompanying the movement of women—and their economic capital—in and out of households, conceptualized as institutions in the economic and legal field. The article then proceeds to describe the wider legal field, its properties, and operating logics, offering new insights into the legal pluralism that transpires in the sources. Bourdieu's theory of practice is subsequently employed to understand both Babatha's agency and the structural challenges posed by her successive inclusion in new kinship networks.