Kelly, Larissa Kennedy (Author)
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the federal government of Mexico made concerted attempts to define, control, and manage a national archaeological patrimony. While these efforts had precedents dating back to the colonial period, the administration of Porfirio Díaz cemented connections between archaeology and state power. Core principles and administrative structures established during the Porfiriato withstood the Revolution of 1910, and continued to shape uses of the material past during the post-Revolutionary era. However, Porfirian efforts to assert control over pre-Hispanic sites and artifacts also met with resistance from a variety of foreign and domestic sources. My dissertation examines interactions between federal bureaucrats, site caretakers, professors of the National Museum, local community members, regional officials, scholars, explorers, and travelers to examine how state power was enacted--and how it faltered--on the ground. Much scholarship on the history of Mexican archaeology focuses on changing intellectual approaches to the Mesoamerican past, or the symbolic and rhetorical uses of pre-Hispanic imagery. In contrast, I emphasize the administrative and legal practices by which the Porfirian regime asserted its authority over physical sites and artifacts. In particular, I look closely at the workings of the Inspección y Conservación de Monumentos Arqueólogicos (Inspectorate of Archaeological Monuments), an agency founded in 1885 to monitor the uses of pre-Hispanic sites and serve as a general clearinghouse for archaeological affairs. Under the direction of Leopoldo Batres, the Inspección played an active role in enforcing the prerogatives and property claims of the federal government. I argue that while the reach and influence of the federal archaeological bureaucracy increased considerably over the course of the Porfiriato, its authority remained fraught and contingent in application. Again and again, individuals and communities resisted or subverted the programs of the archaeological bureaucracy, forcing federal administrators to negotiate rather than command. Through detailed descriptions of specific incidents, I analyze competing uses of the pre-Hispanic material past in order to trace out some of the complexities of Mexican state formation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
...MoreDescription Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 73/07(E), Jan 2013. Proquest Document ID: 929146529.
Thesis
Daniels, Brian Isaac;
(2012)
A History of Antiquities Ownership in the United States, 1870--1934
(/isis/citation/CBB001567360/)
Article
Luckhurst, Roger;
(2012)
Science versus Rumour: Artefaction and Counter-Narrative in the Egyptian Rooms of the British Museum
(/isis/citation/CBB001212977/)
Article
Stevenson, Alice;
(2014)
Artifacts of Excavation the British Collection and Distribution of Egyptian Finds to Museums, 1880--1915
(/isis/citation/CBB001450363/)
Book
Christina Bueno;
(2016)
The Pursuit of Ruins: Archaeology, History, and the Making of Modern Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB679676540/)
Article
Bueno, Christina;
(2010)
Forjando Patrimonio: The Making of Archaeological Patrimony in Porfirian Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB001000012/)
Article
Martins, Ana Christina;
(2010)
Iberian Crossroads: Archaeology and Dictatorships
(/isis/citation/CBB001210562/)
Chapter
Whitley, Richard;
(2010)
The Impact of Governance Changes on Authority and Innovation in Public Science Systems
(/isis/citation/CBB001420855/)
Chapter
Sánchez-Ron, José M.;
(2001)
Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900--1960)
(/isis/citation/CBB000102130/)
Book
Seonaid Valiant;
(2017)
Ornamental Nationalism: Archaeology and Antiquities in Mexico, 1876-1911
(/isis/citation/CBB771386807/)
Article
Callaghan, Richard T.;
(2015)
Drift Voyages across the Mid-Atlantic
(/isis/citation/CBB001422600/)
Article
Sarabia, Angélica Morales;
Pastrana, Patricia Aceves;
(2011)
Data for the Mexican Materia Medica (1894--1908): Medicinal Plants, Therapeutics and Nationalism
(/isis/citation/CBB001251175/)
Article
Souza, Juliana Teixeira;
(2011)
Carne podre, café com milho e leite com água: disputas de autoridade e fiscalização do comércio de gêneros na Corte imperial, 1840--1889
(/isis/citation/CBB001420548/)
Book
Guldi, Jo;
(2012)
Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State
(/isis/citation/CBB001212551/)
Chapter
Irina Podgorny;
(2021)
Change and Continuity: The Bureaucracy of Knowledge in South America
(/isis/citation/CBB085445692/)
Book
Craib, Raymond B.;
(2004)
Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes
(/isis/citation/CBB000640906/)
Article
Wakild, Emily;
(2007)
Naturalizing Modernity: Urban Parks, Public Gardens and Drainage Projects in Porfirian Mexico City
(/isis/citation/CBB001020921/)
Book
Bret, Patrick;
(2002)
L'État, l'armée, la science: L'invention de la recherche publique en France, (1763--1830)
(/isis/citation/CBB000400014/)
Thesis
van Meer, Elisabeth;
(2006)
Engineering beyond Politics? Professional Ideology, Scientific Management and the Evolution of Czechoslovakia, 1848--1948
(/isis/citation/CBB001561483/)
Article
Klemun, Marianne;
(2021)
Communicating Geology between Bureaucracy, public, society and layman: private conversation and productivity in the Metropolis Vienna
(/isis/citation/CBB677923571/)
Article
Andrews, James T.;
(2013)
An Evolving Scientific Public Sphere: State Science Enlightenment, Communicative Discourse, and Public Culture from Imperial Russia to Khrushchev's Soviet Times
(/isis/citation/CBB001320571/)
Be the first to comment!