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T H R E E Consumption and the Varied Ideologies of Domination in Colonial Mexico City Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría 35 Abstract: In this paper I suggest that Spanish colonizers in sixteenth-century Mexico did not share a common ideology of domination that included the rejection of indigenous material culture in their daily lives. Indigenous artifacts, including pottery, can be found in several archaeological sites that were occupied by the Spanish during the sixteenth century . The present study contributes archaeological evidence from three houses in the center of Mexico City, a major focus of Spanish occupation during the sixteenth century, to support the idea that Spanish colonizers welcomed indigenous pottery into their daily lives. Furthermore, the archaeological evidence does not suggest that there was a link between social status, wealth and class, and the kinds of tableware that different colonizer families used. Instead, I propose that colonizer families did not share strategies of display in sixteenth-century Mexico City, where status was in flux and where a monolithic ideology of domination that supported the rejection of indigenous material culture and specific strategies of displaying status had not formed. The existence of different ideologies regarding the role of indigenous and imported material culture in the daily lives of colonizers points to the complexity of politics in the colonial world beyond binary oppositions of colonizers and colonized. Resumen: En este artículo sugiero que los españoles que vivían en la Ciudad de México en el siglo dieciséis no compartían una ideología monolítica de dominación que incluía el rechazo de la cultura material indígena en su diario vivir. En varios sitios arqueológicos ocupados por los españoles durante el siglo dieciséis se han encontrado artefactos indígenas , incluyendo la cerámica. Aquí presento las evidencias arqueológicas procedentes de trés casas españolas del siglo dieciséis ubicadas en el centro de la Ciudad de México. Los materiales arqueológicos demuestran que algunas familias españolas de esta zona utilizaban la cerámica indígena, como el típo Rojo Texcoco de la tradición azteca. Además, las evidencias arqueológicas no demuestran una relación directa entre el estatus social, la riqueza y el típo de cerámica que se utilizaba en las casas de las distintas familias colonizadoras. Partiendo de estas observaciones sugiero que las familias colonizadoras no compartían una estrategia de consumo, ya que vivían en una sociedad en flujo en la cual aún no se habían formado unas estrategias bien definidas para demostrar el estatus social. La existencia de varias ideologías sobre los papeles de la cultura material indígena y los bienes importados de Europa en la vida diaria de los colonizadores indica que la complejidad de la política en el mundo colonial fue mucho más que una simple oposición entre colonizadores y colonizados. 36 / ENRIQUE RODRÍGUEZ-ALEGRÍA The concept of ideology is often used when analyzing stratified societies with a clearly defined dominant class (or classes) and strategies of display and domination . Wolf (1999:4) defined ideology as“the unified schemes or configurations developed to underwrite or manifest power.”Many others have emphasized that ideologies help create and emphasize thoughts, values , and ideas that produce class consciousness and promote certain kinds of social behavior that benefit a particular social class (e.g., Brumfiel 1998:3; Gramsci 1957; Hicks 1996:256). That is, ideologies help create a relationship of dominance in which one social group controls the actions and consciousness of other social groups to its benefit. Ideologies can unite social groups in collective action to dominate other social groups (Hicks 1996), and help create and perpetuate social inequality by rewarding members of dominant groups and rendering their behavior morally acceptable, worthy of sacrifice, and admirable. Ideologies also help consolidate elite domination by prescribing responsibilities for the ruling class (Brumfiel 1998:3–4) that include proper behavior and the appropriate manners of interacting with members of other social classes. Archaeological work in the Spanish colonies of the Americas often focuses on one aspect of Spanish imperial domination: the relationship between material culture, consumption, and Spanish ideologies of domination. A common assumption is that there was a unified, monolithic ideology of domination among Spanish colonizers in early postconquest Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and the Spanish borderlands, and that this ideology can explain material consumption patterns in Spanish households. Many scholars have...

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