The Fabric of Resistance: Textile Workshops and the Rise of Rebellious Landscapes in Colonial Peru (Historical Archaeology in South America) - Hardcover

Di Hu (author)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817321152 ISBN 13: 9780817321154

Publisher: The University of Alabama Press, 2022

Synopsis

The Fabric of Resistance: Textile Workshops and the Rise of Rebellious Landscapes in Colonial Peru documents the impact of Spanish colonial institutions of labor on identity and social cohesion in Peru. Through archaeological and historical lines of evidence, Di Hu examines the long-term social conditions that enabled the large-scale rebellions in the late Spanish colonial period in Peru. Hu argues that ordinary people from different backgrounds pushed back against the top-down identity categories imposed by the Spanish colonial government and in the process created a cosmopolitan social landscape that later facilitated broader rebellion.

Hu’s case study is Pomacocha, the site of an important Spanish colonial hacienda (agricultural estate) and obraje (textile workshop). At its height, the latter had more than one hundred working families and sold textiles all over the Andes. Through analysis of this site, Hu explores three main long-term causes of rebellions against Spanish oppression. First, the Spanish colonial economy provided motivation and the social spaces for intercaste (indigenous, African, and mestizo) mixing at textile workshops. Second, new hybrid cultural practices and political solidarity arose there that facilitated the creation of new rebellious identities. Third, the maturation in the eighteenth century of popular folklore that reflected the harsh nature of Spanish labor institutions helped workers from diverse backgrounds gain a systemic understanding of exploitation.

his study provides a fresh archaeological and historical perspectives on the largest and most cosmopolitan indigenous-led rebellions of the Americas. Hu interweaves analyses of society at multiple scales including fine-grained perspectives of social networks, demography, and intimate details of material life in the textile workshop. She examines a wide range of data sources including artifacts, food remains, architectural plans, account books, censuses, court documents, contracts, maps, and land title disputes.

About this title

About the Author

Di Hu is assistant professor of anthropology at James Madison University and an affiliated scholar at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817321152
• ISBN 13: 9780817321154
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256