Yucatec land and labor arrangements before and after Spanish incursions are examined for ruptures and continuities. The Western concept of private property is found to ring hollow in a landscape in which intersecting spheres of authority (including those of supernaturals) guide protocols of access and extraction. Furthermore, no simple dichotomy between pre- and post-colonial can explain the range of land arrangements and networks of labor that existed across Yucatán. Through the input of labor or as a consequence of geomorphology, a patchwork of high-productivity micro-environments can be found across Yucatán and on Cozumel Island. Cultivation and/or extraction at these resource-intensive production zones encompassed a large range of labor arrangements and interdependencies during Pre-Columbian times. In general, land and labor are conceptualized as suspended within relationships of shifting authority. In reference to both land labor, authors break with the construct of “control over” and embrace the phrase “authority to,” which recognizes the role of negotiation and the inclusion of supernatural forces perceived to have played a structuring role in the disposition of land and labor.
Archaeologists from the United States working in what is referred to as the Maya area have paid insufficient attention to the structural violence of colonial rule and how their own narratives may perpetuate it. This article addresses the pervasive effects of colonial violence on farming communities in Yucatán, Mexico, which resulted in the undercutting of sustainable livelihoods and the imposition of hierarchies leading to systemic racism. The interpretation of archaeological and historical evidence can reveal the challenges that colonialism and its consequences posed for Indigenous peoples in their daily lives and also distinguish tactics that they used to achieve well-being. Following an account of colonial policies and their outcomes, we demonstrate how closely linked archaeological practice has been with colonial and imperial interests in Yucatán and suggest how archaeologists can reckon with the violence of colonialism and its resonances in archaeology today.
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