A World of Strangers: A Historical Archaeology of the Mexican Pacific Coast (11th-17th centuries CE)

FAIN: FT-286395-22

Dan A. Zborover
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Englewood, CO 80113-3188)

Research and writing leading to a book on the southern Pacific coast of Mexico between 1000 CE and 1700 CE.

The NEH Summer Stipend will support archival research in the Indigenous Chontal town of San Pedro Huamelula, Mexico. This will contribute to two chapters of my in-progress monograph, A World of Strangers: A Historical Archaeology of the Mexican Pacific Coast. Building on a critical reconfiguration of historical archaeology and a transhistorical perspective, the book focuses on the deep roots of long-term colonialism and incipient globalization on the Mexican Pacific coast. I argue that in order to fully understand these regional and global processes as a continuum, we must first reconstruct the Indigenous geopolitics in the region starting from the 11th through the 16th centuries, and which later laid the groundwork for European incursions and colonization. The book will highlight the Indigenous peoples’ impact on the transpacific world, and contribute to contemporary debates on Decoloniality and the Postcolonial critique, Indigenous agency, and re-writing alternative histories.