Politics with Style: Identity Formation in Prehispanic Southeastern Mesoamerica

Abstract

Those seeking to ensconce themselves at the pinnacles of emerging sociopolitical hierarchies must forge alliances with both their immediate subordinates and distant peers. In the first case, allegiance to a polity that transcends extant and emerging sectarian affiliations must be achieved if the realm is to survive the passing of individual charismatic rulers. Cooperation with foreign leaders, in turn, guarantees a steady supply of political valuables useful in ensnaring clients within dependency relations that undergird sociopolitical hierarchy. Achievement of these objectives requires creation and propagation of at least two distinct social identities, one linking rulers and ruled within a polity and the other uniting paramounts in a network covering vast territorial expanses. In this article, we examine Late Classic (A.D. 600-950) material patterns from the Naco valley, northwestern Honduras, for the light they shed on the proposed integration of political and cultural processes within developing complex polities. The strategic manipulation of material symbols to fashion new affiliations and the implications of these identities for social change are also considered, [social identity, Mesoamerican archaeology, ideology, political contests, symbols] Anwrican Anthropologist 1O^(2):312-330.

New Perspectives in Mississippian Archaeology

“…As Mississippian archaeologists track material expressions of identity, it may prove useful to examine the evidence at different spatial scales, as suggested for the ancient Maya by Schortman et al (2001). At a multiregional scale, identity is expressed in a high culture or ''international style'' (Blanton et al 1996); a Mississippian example is the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex regalia that was exchanged and displayed to signal an individual's identity as part of an interregional elite (Cobb and King 2005).…”

Enacting power through networks

“…479 and 480;Preucel, 2000, pp. 61 and 73;Schortman et al, 2001). Such webs can span diverse spatial scales, variably uniting and dividing participants in such territorial entities as households, societies, and states.…”

“…Yet other household residents could enjoy ties with political leaders that are instantiated through pledges of loyalty and gifts of items symbolizing that affiliation (Yaeger, 2000). Along the same lines, rulers may subscribe to nets that link them exclusively with peers in neighboring realms even as they promote solidarity with their subordinates at home (Schortman and Urban, 2011a;Schortman et al, 2001).…”

Recent Trends in Theorizing Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

“…In addition, La Sierra's rulers appear to have been rather selective in their borrowing of the trappings of elite Maya culture, perhaps because the Maya etiquette of rulership involved symbols designed to integrate large, state-level entities, which were not necessary or particularly useful for the residents of the Naco Valley. Recent work on this model (e.g., Schortman et al, 2001) takes into account the politics of identity formation and how symbols critical to this process were manipulated by those seeking to maintain interaction networks while creating localized corporate identities. Thus, the so-called "underdeveloped periphery" was actually quite complex and maintained differentiated (versus necessarily hierarchical) relationships with core states.…”