@article{a17b997e9b6f4d20b18d7486081db288,
title = "Assemblages of Production: Capitalist Colonial Labor Regimes and other Productive Practices in Highland Guatemala",
abstract = "The consequences of Spanish colonial/capitalist intrusions in highland Guatemala are an emerging focus of archaeological investigation. While providing insight into the entanglements between colonialism and capitalism and their effects on Maya communities, it is critical not to fixate only on extractive and exploitative labor regimes to the exclusion of other patterns of practice and production central to the experience of people in the past. In our analyses, a singular focus on capitalist colonialism reifies the suffocating ubiquity of abstract processes, foreclosing the possibility of other ways of being in the world that were not capitalist, colonial, or formed in relation or opposition to them. Instead, a holistic approach to the assemblage of production practices in capitalist colonial contexts allows for analyses of “capitalist” practices that exist side side-by-side and/or articulated with other practices—traditional and innovative—outside the unproductive two-step of either resistance to or engagement with capitalism or colonialism. In this article we use archival and archaeological research on colonial Maya sites in the piedmont and highland regions of Guatemala to piece together the spectrum of economic and productive practices carried out by colonial Maya communities: some coerced, some opportunistic of the emerging colonial economic landscape, and others having little to do with the intrusions of capitalist/colonial practices and effects.",
keywords = "Guatemala, assemblage theory, capitalism, colonialism, consumption, labor",
author = "Guido Pezzarossi and Kennedy, {J. Ryan}",
note = "Funding Information: We owe a great debt to many institutions and individuals that have helped with various aspects of this project. Thanks to the Instituto de Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala for allowing this research to take place and for supporting the various needs of the project, and to the project codirector, Luisa Escobar Gallo, who essentially made the actual work possible and served as an important advisor in all things related to fieldwork in Guatemala. A special thank you to UMass Boston and the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research, especially Heather Trigg, who carried out pollen analyses on samples from Aguacatepeque. The National Science Foundation DDIG (BCS-1346286), National Geographic Society, Waitt Foundation (No. W10-107), as well as the Stanford University Department of Anthropology and the vice provost for graduate education all provided support for elements of the work discussed here. We are grateful to the many individuals that have spurred these ideas and read earlier and different versions of these arguments, especially Barb Voss, Rosemary Joyce, Ian Hodder, Douglas Smit, and Heather Law Pezzarossi. All errors and issues, however, are our responsibility alone. Funding Information: We owe a great debt to many institutions and individuals that have helped with various aspects of this project. Thanks to the Instituto de Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala for allowing this research to take place and for supporting the various needs of the project, and to the project codirector, Luisa Escobar Gallo, who essentially made the actual work possible and served as an important advisor in all things related to fieldwork in Guatemala. A special thank you to UMass Boston and the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research, especially Heather Trigg, who carried out pollen analyses on samples from Aguacatepeque. The National Science Foundation DDIG (BCS-1346286), National Geographic Society, Waitt Foundation (No. W10-107), as well as the Stanford University Department of Anthropology and the vice provost for graduate education all provided support for elements of the work discussed here. We are grateful to the many individuals that have spurred these ideas and read earlier and different versions of these arguments, especially Barb Voss, Rosemary Joyce, Ian Hodder, Douglas Smit, and Heather Law Pezzarossi. All errors and issues, however, are our responsibility alone. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019, Society for Historical Archaeology.",
year = "2019",
month = dec,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1007/s41636-019-00204-9",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "53",
pages = "653--673",
journal = "Historical archaeology",
issn = "0440-9213",
publisher = "Society for Historical Archaeology",
number = "3-4",
}