Re-Assembling Radical Indigenous Autonomy in the Alta California Hinterlands: Survivance at Puhú
Meeting ID: 989-9934-3945
Please contact Emily Bishop if you would like to join this meeting
Practitioners of Indigenous Archaeology have adopted Gerald Vizenor’s concept of survivance to reframe micropolitical identity transformations (e.g. ethnogenesis or persistence) exhibited by indigenous communities under colonization. This talk expands upon archaeologies of survivance by introducing what Tongva, Acjachemen (Blas Adobe Aguliar, Acjachemen Cultural Center) and Payómkawichum (Pechenga Band of Luiseño Indians) collaborators term thrive-ance. Thrive-ance is a condition of existence focused on macropolitical dimensions of indigenous autonomy that exceeded bare survival or micropolitical resistance before and after colonization as a challenge to colonial historiography. I present how the Black Star Canyon Archaeology Project (2013-2019) performed an archaeology of thrive-ance by employing archival, lithic, and geochemical provenance analyses within an Assemblage theory framework to highlight intensified radical indigenous politico-economic networks in the Alta California colonial hinterlands.
