The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis

Barbara L. Voss’s study of colonial settlers in San Francisco, California, during its years as a presidio (1776 – 1821) is a welcome addition to the growing field of North American historical archaeology. What sets her work apart from more conventional studies is her decision to analyze identity within the theoretical framework of ethnogenesis, or “the birthing of new cultural identities” (p. 1), and to focus on the colonists rather than the colonized (Native Americans). Simply stated, Voss highlights how a diverse group of families of mixed race origins recruited by the Spanish Crown to settle a military outpost came to reject their classification in the sistema de castas and forge a new group identity as Californios.Voss’s study of ethnogenesis on the frontier of the Spanish Empire is organized around four main themes: colonization, material practice, overdetermination, and sexuality. Colonization produced the cultural ruptures that drove innovations to create new identities. Material practice, or what people do, receives ample attention in her study as she posits that “social subjects are entangled in the materiality of the world” (p. 4) and that the material practices of daily life play an active role in reshaping and maintaining social identity. Overdetermination challenges the static approach employed by archaeologists to view identities as secure categories rather than “ongoing social processes” (p. 5). One of the study’s strengths is the author’s analysis of the myriad webs of discourse and material practices that shaped Californio identity. Sexuality and gender round out her organizing concepts. Voss is especially interested in “relations of differential masculinity that were materially produced through labor practices and architecture” (p. 6) and how they combined with race and local conditions to consolidate a unique cultural identity.Employing ample historical and archaeological sources, Voss found that second- and third-generation mixed-race colonists defined themselves as gente de razón or hjios del país to differentiate themselves from Native Californians. Their identification first as people of honor and second as tied to the region or land gave way to their self-identification as Californios. Self-conscious choices in dress, foodways, dishware, and the organization and manipulation of space all contributed to a tangible Californio identity that was in direct opposition to that of their Native American neighbors. While Ross Jamieson in his work on colonial Ecuador found that castas combined colonial and indigenous material culture to negotiate their mixed-race status, colonists at El Presidio de San Francisco deployed “material practices that created internal homogeneity within the colonial population and established rigid distinctions between themselves and local Native Californians” (p. 300). Voss’s findings depart from other studies of colonists and the colonized that emphasize creolization or syncretism as a result of their cultural contact. In fact, Voss suggests that Californios had more in common with Dutch settlers in the Hudson River Valley than with their counterparts elsewhere in the Spanish Empire. Californios and Protestant Dutch mercantilists, while living under disparate colonial projects, pursued similar material strategies that separated them from local indigenous populations.Historians will find much to like about this book. It is clearly organized and each chapter begins with a historiographical discussion that firmly situates the research in the literature. Voss’s study also emphasizes the fruitful collaboration that could occur between historians and archeologists. Moving beyond a simple analysis of material culture, Voss mines historical documents (what people say) and analyzes them in combination with the archaeological record (what people do). Theory underpins much of her analysis, with Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Judith Butler, and Pierre Bourdieu providing the framework to understand structures of control, the use of space, gender identities, and the development of taste among the Californios. Voss navigates the different theorists and theories with expertise and avoids unnecessary jargon

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Ethnic group · Ethnogenesis · Frontier · Human sexuality · Identity (music · Materiality (auditing · Race (biology · Sociology · Anthropology · Archaeology and Natural History · Gender Studies · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History

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