Archaeology without Borders: Contact, Commerce, and Change in the U.S. Southwest and Northwestern Mexico

16. Imaginary Border, Profound Border: Terminological and Conceptual Construction of the Archaeology of Northern Mexico

In The Sociologist’s Position, Pierre Bourdieu states that reality is the sum of its relations and that banishing the idea of its transparency is indispensable to the study of the social realm (Bourdieu, Chamboderon, and Passeron 1975:37–38). Preconceptions are barriers, and false constructions are unconscious and uncontrollable preconstructions to the essence of sociological discourse. These preconceptions incite one to believe that facts should correspond with certain images arising from language , the primary instrument in the construction of the world. If not subjected to methodical criticism, they fall victim to our tendency to accept such pre-­constructed ideas as facts of common language. This rigorous definition is useless, and possibly even deceptive, if the principal unifier has not been critiqued. For this reason, epistemological vigilance is needed to avoid the corruption of ideas stemming from these preconceptions. Why have I begun in this manner? Because certain names and terms that have been applied and are still utilized in the study of the spatial-cultural reality of northern Mexico have yet to be subjected to epistemological critique. They are defined as preconceptions because they have yet to be assessed in terms of how their reality is perceived, an ontological view tied strongly to epistemology and the construction of Francisco Mendiola Galván Imaginary Border, Profound Border Terminological and Conceptual Construction of the Archaeology of Northern Mexico 16 291 Francisco Mendiola Galván 292 knowledge. My present objective is not to enter into a critique of the terminological and conceptual construction of concepts such as Arid America (Aridoamérica), Oasis America (Oasisamérica), Northwest (Noroeste), La Gran Chichimeca, and northern Mexico but to focus on elements that justify the need to carry out fundamental theoretical and epistemological reflections on the distinctive names these places have received within anthropological and historical discourse, especially archaeology. The borders are understood and managed as the sum of interactions in equilibrium or dispute between terminological and conceptual spaces that relate to the physical territories between what is known today as the southwestern United States (the Southwest) and northern Mexico. Arid America, Oasis America, the Northwest , and La Gran Chichimeca are understood to be territories within these two bordering nations. As archaeologists, we move in an imaginary frontier that conforms to the imaginary borders produced by each of the names and terms used to designate the territories of this great region north of Mesoamerica and south of the United States. These are invented and artificial borders in terms of the profound border that encompasses the diverse real borders. They are also ethnocentric and neocolonial elements of the political and ideological environment. These borders, together with the imaginary ones, generate ambiguity and constrict the region—the archaeological northern Mexico located between Mesoamerica and the Southwest. Elements of these profound borders do not appear in the discourse of archaeology because it is generally a given that “archaeology should not be political or ideological but purely scientific.” This positivist vision prevails as an inherent and essential part of contemporary archaeology, a position that accepts preconceptions as spontaneous , revealed between the imaginary borders. The data and justification needed to sustain and develop these preconceptions academically and politically, economically and ideologically, can be found within archaeology’s own positivist discourse. THE TERMINOLOGICAL AND CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION IN NORTHERN MEXICO To approach the precontact period in ancient northern Mexico, it is necessary to understand the historiography of the terms and concepts that have been used in archaeological investigation. It is with this aim that I explore some general trends from the end of the nineteenth century to the present and examine some of the theoretical and methodological pressures, on the one hand, and ideologically political and institutional pressures, on the other. This task does not require a culture-historical division of Mesoamerica, the Southwest, and northern Mexico; that would be irrelevant. The challenge for future investigations is to understand the north not only from the Mesoamerican perspective but also from its own northern viewpoint, at the same time considering its own northern dynamics from a solid terminological and conceptual base. The pre-Hispanic past of the great region known as northern Mexico and the southwestern United States is shared by both nations, now divided by a river. This Imaginary Border, Profound Border 293 is the same region that bore past witness to a series of sociocultural processes by groups that existed prior to the arrival of the Europeans...