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THEORIZING URBANISM IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2010

Arthur A. Joyce
Arthur A. Joyce*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Hale Science Building 350, Boulder, CO 80309-0233
*
E-mail correspondence to:arthur.joyce@colorado.edu
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Abstract

In this article I consider recent research on urbanism in ancient Mesoamerica, especially over the past twenty years. I focus on the theoretical perspectives that archaeologists use to address cities, urbanism, and urbanization. I argue that despite some significant advances in how we understand urbanism, most research continues to be embedded within cultural evolutionist, functionalist, and elitist theoretical frameworks. I highlight approaches drawn from poststructural theory that hold promise for developing a more dynamic, complex, and culturally compelling view of Mesoamerican urbanism. Using examples from pre-Hispanic Oaxaca, I discuss how a focus on practice, social negotiation, and materiality draws attention to the actions of people within their social, cultural, and material settings rather than on abstract high-level forces such as cultural evolutionary structures or the functioning of urban centers within broader societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Fall 2009 , pp. 189 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 For more general theoretical influences drawn on in this discussion, see Appadurai 1986; Bourdieu 1977; Connerton 1989; de Certeau 1984; Foucault 1977; Giddens 1979, 1984; Latour 2005; Miller 2005; Ortner 1984, 1996; Scott 1990; Sewell 1992; Tilley et al. 2006.

2 Over the past 20 years, important field research on Oaxacan urbanism has included a major project at Monte Albán by the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Martínez and Markens 2004; Martínez et al 2000; Winter 1994a, 1995, 2001, 2003, 2006; Winter and Martínez Lopéz 1994). Other important recent publications on urbanism in the Oaxaca Valley include Blanton et al. 1993, 1999; de la Cruz and Winter 2002; Elson 2006; Finsten 1995; A. Joyce 2000, 2009; Kowalewski et al. 1989; Marcus and Flannery 1996; Orr 2001; Urcid 2001, 2005b; Winter 1989a, b). There has been a florescence of research on urbanism in regions outside the Oaxaca Valley, including the lower Río Verde Valley (Barber 2005; Barber and Joyce 2007; A. Joyce 1993, 2005, 2008; Joyce and Mueller 1997; Joyce et al. 1998, 2004; King 2003; Levine 2007; Urcid and Joyce 2001; Workinger 2002), Mixteca Alta (Balkansky 1998a, 1998b; Balkansky et al. 2000, 2004; Blomster 2004; Pérez Rodríguez 2006; Robles García 1988; Spores and Robles García 2007; Winter 1989a, 1994b), Mixteca Baja (Rivera Guzmán 2000; Winter 2007a) and the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Winter 2007b; J. Zeitlin 2005; R. Zeitlin 1993) as well as volumes dealing with urbanism in several regions of Oaxaca (Blomster 2008; Joyce 2010; Robles García 2004, 2009).