Procesos de socialización

A central tenet of exploring the colonial process is the concept of archaeological identities. Identity can be generally understood as the process through which an agent and/or sub-group is identified through a variety of means to create socially bounded groups based on internal and external perceived differences or similarities (Brighton 2004:149; Shennan 1989:14; Stark and Chance 2008:3). These groups encompass a wide variety of differences based on traits emphasized to depict difference; identity groups are permeable (Gosselain 2000:188; Jones 1996:70; Russell 2004:33).

Identities are not necessarily mutually exclusive: an agent can concurrently embody an almost limitless number of identities (Casella and Fowler 2004; cf. Fowler 2004; Meskell 2007; O'Keeffe 2004). Identities should be conceptualized as overlapping conceptual

boundaries that are continuously being enacted, created, and/or changed. The majority of the identities function at a subconscious level until they are confronted and consciously engaged (Jones 1999:226). This does not mean that identities are only consciously manipulated and enacted, but that unless an identity is actively engaged with, then it is often enveloped within the everyday actions of daily life. While most identities are independent, many can also be intertwined in specific contexts (Jones 1996:70). The ability of different identities to co-exist is contingent on context and how the agent and others perceive the symbols of the relevant identities. If two identities are understood to use the same symbols in an appropriate manner, or if one identity is dependent on another, they can ascribe to both without any overt

resistance. However, if two identities are understood to be contradictory, they will be questioned and either renegotiated or rejected by either the community or the agent.

The processes involved in identity ascription engage tension between how the agent self- identifies and how the agent is identified by others (Funari et al. 1999); in other words, the “negotiation between what you call yourself and what other people are willing to call you back” (Voss 2012:304). This tension results in the continuous reaffirmation, contradiction, and revision of identities based on how the agent and the community respond to certain accepted symbols, including specific actions, material goods, beliefs, or physical attributes that are, consciously and unconsciously, agreed upon by the community using inclusion or exclusion processes (Cipolla 2008:416; Smith 2007). These symbols are continuously negotiated and are integral in understanding how identities change (Cipolla 2008). As the agent, or the society around them, changes, acquires new skills or goods, or the context in which the agent exists changes, new identities can be acquired, others can be dropped, and others still can be negotiated to account for the changes (Casella and Fowler 2004:2; Jamieson 2004:228).

In contrast to the conceptualization of identity as static and directly linked to material culture, individuals’ identities must be understood as fluid and contingent on the specific contexts in which they are engaged (Russell 2004:33; Stark and Chance 2008:3). Identities are not only passively embodied, as they can be consciously manipulated, subverted, and constructed by an agent for various purposes or unconsciously assumed based on other attributes and other elements of identity that are imposed by others. The dynamic nature of identities, and their contingency on specific contexts, makes it important to focus on how identity changes, rather than a specific identity at one period of time, because the time depth allows observers to examine what factors and influences the changes in identity are responding to (Stark and Chance 2008:2). The ascription of identities is a dynamic process that involves the

continuous negotiation of symbols between agent and community. This continuous

negotiation means that identities are constantly changing and must be reinforced in research understandings.

It is important to understand that identities are not directly observable in the archaeological record (Jones 1999:226). Archaeologists can observe symbols, patterns and practices, but these alone are not identities. What patterns and practices do represent is how people in the past conceptualized and enacted their lives through material culture; the changes and patterns in this material culture can suggest in turn how identities were conceptualized. By observing these changes and patterns, archaeologists can observe commonalities in the practices over space and time and infer how these commonalities represent some form of group identity (Gosselain 2000:188; Jones 1999:226). Interpretations can only be understood in the context in which they are examined and the commonalities in both context and identity studied over time (O'Keeffe 2004:31).

Researchers tend to fragment identities into manageable units of analysis, such as gender, age, class, and ethnicity (Fowler 2004; O'Keeffe 2004). These units are selected based on the researcher’s own interests but are also framed by currently accepted or in vogue research interests. The tendency to correlate identity categories and social contexts is demonstrated by the protracted use of identity categories like class, language, and culture, while other identity categories, such as gender, age, and sexuality, have only more recently become popular categories of identity that invite research focus (Meskell 2007:26). The selection of research categories is an activity conducted entirely in the ‘now’ of a researcher’s own understandings of how societies and cultures function. Thus, it is significant to understand that there are no such things as ‘natural’ categories: all categories are constructed in the present (Meskell 2007:31; Shennan 1989:10). These research categories, and how the researcher

conceptualizes them, are then imposed onto the past and evaluated against the available data. This methodology has generated a lot of interesting data and conclusions but has maintained a fragmented concept of identity.

This fragmentation is a necessary methodological tool, but it is based on several assumptions. First, it is assumed that the selected identity categories of the present also had similar

meanings in the past. Since these analytical categories were created in the present, it is possible that these categories did not exist or did not have the same values in the past. Second, it is assumed that the patterns examined by the researcher are associated with the identity category chosen by the researcher to focus on. The association of patterns with a particular identity category is often accomplished through the correlation of data; however, if the assumed categories did not exist, then the correlation may suggest something different. Because of these assumptions, it is vital to maintain a reflexive and more holistic

understanding that they were all enacted simultaneously by an agent in the past; identities are not entirely separately gendered, aged, classed, etc., but are instead a convoluted mixture of a person who is simultaneously of a gender, age, class, etc. in a specific social context.