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SITES OF MEMORY IN THE MAKING: POLITICAL STRATEGIZING IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION OF PLACE IN LATE TO TERMINAL CLASSIC SOUTHEASTERN MESOAMERICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2011

Miranda Stockett
Miranda Stockett*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Queen's College, City University of New York, Powdermaker Hall 314, 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, New York 11367
*
Email correspondence to: mirandastockett@gmail.com
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Abstract

Archaeological spaces can be viewed as material manifestations of human drama—sites for the production, expression, and manipulation of social life, power, and history. By viewing such spaces as stages for the enactment of processes of social memory, we may further enrich considerations of the interplay of materiality and history. Here I address the insights archaeologists may gain from engaging with theories of social memory by exploring their application to the analysis of settlements occupied during the Late to Terminal Classic period transition (a.d. 650–900) in pre-Columbian southeastern Mesoamerica. I also consider their relevance to community initiatives engaged by archaeologists today. Ultimately, I argue that processes of making, altering, and remaking place are one among many ways that memory may have served as a tool for political strategies and discourses about power.

Type
Special Section: Current Perspectives on Social Memory
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Fall 2010 , pp. 315 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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