ACMCHM 2013 - Archaeology and Cultural Mixing: Creolization, Hybridity, and Mestizaje

Archaeology and Cultural Mixing: Creolization, Hybridity, and Mestizaje
Volume 28.1, April 2013
Theme editor: Paul van Pelt (wpv20-AT-cam.ac.uk)
In the past decade archaeologists have increasingly embraced a number of concepts involving
cultural mixture and exchange developed in the humanities and social sciences as a means to
describe cultural process in colonial situations and their postcolonial reactions. Closely related
to and often following colonial encounters, the concepts of creolization, hybridity, and mestizaje
(although originally purely biological or linguistic terms) are used to describe discursive
processes in which different social and economic relations are continually negotiated and
renegotiated, and through which entirely “new” or “mixed” social and material conditions are
developed.
Notwithstanding their current archaeological popularity, discussions of the terms creolization,
hybridity and mestizaje have provoked heated debates in corollary fields and highlighted several
of the concepts’ discontents, their primary conceptual drawback allegedly being that of
reifying natural cultures (i.e. cultural essentialism) and denying or overlooking the dynamic role
of human actors in cultural encounters. In addition, very few contributions have hitherto
explicitly tried to problematize creolization, hybridity and mestizaje theory within archaeology,
touching upon such related conceptual issues as typology, mobility, the circulation of material
culture, and the relationship between objects and meaning.
Bearing these issues in mind, the Archaeological Review from Cambridge invites contributions
to the theme of cultural mixing and exchange in archaeology and the concomitant concepts of
creolization, hybridity, and mestizaje. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
Theoretical and historiographical discussions on creolization, hybridity, and
mestizaje theory in archaeology, e.g. how should the terms be defined and are there
further subdivisions to be made (e.g. between hybridity and hybridization theory)?
What do the socio-political contexts in which these concepts emerged and/or gained
archaeological popularity tell us about them? Is it possible to apply creolization,
hybridity, and mestizaje theory outside of the colonial and post-colonial contexts in
which they were developed? If so, how should they be applied and under what
conditions?
Discussions on whether archaeologists can gain novel insights from creolization,
hybridity and mestizaje theory.
Conversely, discussions on whether archaeology with its unique time-depth can add
meaningfully to theories of cultural mixture in the social sciences.
Discussions on the social processes that bring about “hybrid” objects and actions,
such as the exchange of craftsmen and technology, intercultural marriage, and the
circulation of material culture.
Discussions on the relationship between cultural mixtures observed in daily
practices, texts, and language and those traceable in the archaeological record.
Archaeological case-studies that illustrate recombinations of cultural forms,
particularly from those areas and periods where the combined artefactual,
architectural, textual and representational records provide a contextualized and
sophisticated framework for interpretation.
Please send abstracts of not more than 500 words to Paul van Pelt (wpv20-AT-cam.ac.uk) by 29th February 2012. The full article should not exceed 4000 words. Deadline for first drafts will be in early June 2012, for publication in April 2013. Style guidelines and notes for contributors can be
found at http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/arc/contribute.html .
The Archaeological Review from Cambridge is a journal of archaeology managed and published
on a voluntary basis by postgraduate research students at the University of Cambridge. Issues are
released twice a year. ARC is a non-profit making organisation. Although primarily rooted in
archaeological theory and practice, ARC increasingly accommodates a wide range of
perspectives with the aim of establishing a strong, inter-disciplinary journal which will be of
interest to those engaged in a range of fields.