The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial Contexts: Postcolonial Historical Archaeologies

334 Pages·2011·5.89 MB·English

by  Sarah K. Croucher

The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial
Contexts
CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor:
Charles E. Orser, Jr., New York State Museum, Albany, New York, USA
ARCHAEOLOGY AND CREATED MEMORY: Public History in a National Park
Paul A. Schackel
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF MANNERS: The Polite World of the Merchant Elite of Colonial
Massachusetts
Lorinda B.R. Goodwin
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOCIAL SPACE: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica’s
Blue Mountains
James A. Delle
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE AND POWER: The Historical Archaeology of Colonial Ecuador
Ross W. Jamieson
GENDERED LIVES: Historical Archaeologies of Social Relations in Deerfield, Massachusetts ca.
1750-ca. 1904
Edited by Deborah Rotman
THE HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGIES OF BUENOS AIRES: A City at the End of the World
Daniel Schavelzon
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGIES OF CAPITALISM
Edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr.
A HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: Breaking New Ground
Edited by Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll
MEANING AND IDEOLOGY IN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLGY: Style, Social Identity, and
Capitalism in an Australian Town
Heather Burke
MEMORIES FROM DARKNESS: Archaeology of Repression and Resistance in Latin America
Edited by Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari, Andrés Zarankin, and Melisa Anabella Salerno
RACE AND AFFLUENCE: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture
Paul R. Mullins
RURAL SOCIETY IN THE AGE OF REASON: An Archaeology of the Emergence of Modern
Life in the Southern Scottish Highlands
Chris Dalglish
A SPACE OF THEIR OWN: Lunatic Asylums in Britain, South Australia, and Tasmania
Susan Piddock
TE PUNA: A New Zealand Mission Station
Angela Middleton
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Sarah K. Croucher Lindsay Weiss
●
Editors
The Archaeology
of Capitalism in Colonial
Contexts
Postcolonial Historical Archaeologies
Editors
Sarah K. Croucher Lindsay Weiss
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Archaeology Center and Department
Archaeology, and Feminist of Anthropology
Gender & Sexuality Studies Stanford University
Wesleyan University 94305 Palo Alto, CA, USA
06459 Middletown, CT, USA [email protected]
[email protected]
ISSN 1574-0439
ISBN 978-1-4614-0191-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-0192-6
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0192-6
Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011934259
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This book is dedicated to our advisors,
especially:
Eleanor Casella
Tim Insoll
&
Lynn Meskell
wwwwwwwwwwwwww
Preface
This volume results from a session at the 2008 Society for Historical Archaeology
meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our motivation was feeling that at the time
that there was little discussion in postcolonial directions in histories of capitalism
occurring within historical archaeology. Yet, we were both inspired to analyze our
archaeological materials by these same postcolonial histories, and were animated by
the direction they offered in fracturing the often teleological discussions of the devel-
opment of capitalism offered by historical archaeologists. As a result of these conver-
sations, we organized a session which produced an exciting grouping of papers and
conversations on the topic. We seem to have been timely in our desire to integrate
insights from postcolonial theory more thoroughly into the discipline, since this has
occurred more frequently since our original session. Notably Liebmann and Rizvi’s
Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique (2008) and Lydon and Rizvi’s Handbook
of Postcolonial Archaeology (2010) have been directed at more forcefully integrating
postcolonial theory within archaeology, albeit into the field more generally and not
simply within historical archaeology which is the target of the papers included in this
volume. The plenary session at the American Theoretical Archaeology Group con-
ference in 2010 was also notable for bringing the noted theorist Homi Bhabha into a
conversation with archaeologists (http://www.proteus.brown.edu/tag2010/7261).
Discussions within historical archaeology itself, particularly in the nontraditional
areas of the field, are also pushing forward explicit discussions as to the problems of
applying the usual discussions of the progression of capitalism into new contexts, as
we discuss in our introduction.
Nevertheless, the grouping of these papers at the time of the 2008 meeting
seemed a novel one, and we felt that a volume resulting from this session would
produce a timely contribution to the field, and it is with this premise we pursued the
publication of the papers within the session. Since then, the chapters have been
swollen with the introduction of Alistair Paterson’s work adding a segment of the
discussion from an Australasian perspective. Several of the original participants
who were vital to the original discussions are also not included in this volume, and
we would like to acknowledge their input (Heather Atherton, Jenna Coplin, Chris
Matthews, and Kathryn Sikes).
vii
viii Preface
Several people have been particularly instrumental in bringing this volume to
actuality. We are indebted to the support of Martin Hall, who provided insightful
commentary to our original session (Hall 2008) which he has updated to the com-
mentary chapter included in this volume. Nan Rothschild also kindly read the origi-
nal commentary at the SHA session. Charles Orser has also been a continual
supporter of the project, particularly in shepherding us through inclusion in the
Global Directions in Historical Archaeology series. Teresa Krauss at Springer has
also been generous in her support of our volume, and she has been instrumental in
bringing this project to fruition. We would also like to thank the two anonymous
reviewers of our book proposal, whose comments ensured a tightening of the direc-
tion of the volume, our arguments in the introduction, and ensured that we had as
great a global spread as has been possible. Many others have also inspired us with
ideas and comments for our chapters, and are acknowledged in individual chapters.
All errors and admissions are, of course, our own.
This book is also the product of the early years of our career, spanning the first
years of the tenure track for Sarah Croucher, and the completion of the dissertation
and a move to a postdoctoral position for Lindsay Weiss. Many of our ideas have
been provoked by our advisors, and it is to them we would like to dedicate this volume,
for their continual mentoring and support.
Middletown, CT Sarah K. Croucher
Palo Alto, CA Lindsay Weiss
Contents
1 The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial Contexts,
an Introduction: Provincializing Historical Archaeology .................. 1
Sarah K. Croucher and Lindsay Weiss
2 Precolonial Encounters at Tamál-Húye: An Event-Oriented
Archaeology in Sixteenth-Century Northern California .................... 39
Matthew A. Russell
3 Subduing Tendencies? Colonialism, Capitalism,
and Comparative Atlantic Archaeologies ............................................ 65
Audrey Horning
4 Ethnicity and Periphery: The Archaeology of Identity
in Russian America ................................................................................ 85
Aron L. Crowell
5 Building Farmsteads in the Desert: Capitalism, Colonialism,
and the Transformation of Rural Landscapes in Late Ottoman
Period Transjordan ................................................................................ 105
Lynda Carroll
6 Uneven Topographies: Archaeology of Plantations
and Caribbean Slave Economies .......................................................... 121
Mark W. Hauser
7 A Life on Broken China: Figuring Senses of Capitalism
in Late Nineteenth-Century Bogotá ..................................................... 143
Felipe Gaitán-Ammann
8 Exchange Values: Commodities, Colonialism, and Identity
on Nineteenth Century Zanzibar .......................................................... 165
Sarah K. Croucher
ix