Premium
From Casta to Californio : Social Identity and the Archaeology of Culture Contact
Author(s) -
VOSS BARBARA L.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2005.107.3.461
Subject(s) - indigenous , colonialism , foodways , settlement (finance) , identity (music) , ethnology , ethnic group , anthropology , sociology , history , social identity theory , archaeology , social group , aesthetics , ecology , art , social science , biology , world wide web , computer science , payment
In culture contact archaeology, studies of social identities generally focus on the colonized–colonizer dichotomy as the fundamental axis of identification. This emphasis can, however, mask social diversity within colonial or indigenous populations, and it also fails to account for the ways that the division between colonizer and colonized is constructed through the practices of colonization. Through the archaeology of material culture, foodways, and architecture, I examine changing ethnic, racial, and gendered identities among colonists at El Presidio de San Francisco, a Spanish‐colonial military settlement. Archaeological data suggest that military settlers were engaged in a double material strategy to consolidate a shared colonial identity, one that minimized differences among colonists and simultaneously heightened distinctions between colonists and local indigenous peoples.