The Moynihan Institute’s Program on Latin A merica and the Caribbean is proud to host Sam Holley-Kline from the Americ an Council of Learned Societies fellowship program.
Holley-Klin e will present as-yet-unpublished archival research on the relationships b etween archaeological labor\, race and extractive industry in early twenti eth-century Guatemala. The paper explores how ideas of race prevalent in t he banana and chicle (chewing gum) industries played out in two contexts: the Archaeological Institute of America’s excavations in Quiriguá (1910-19 15) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s research in Uaxactún (192 6-1937)\, both of which relied on transnational labor forces.
< p>In the first\, archaeologists drew on patterns of racial discrimina tion characteristic of the United Fruit Company in managing workers. In th e second\, racialization did not entail discrimination but still reflected archaeologists’ beliefs about what kinds of bodies were suitable for cert ain kinds of work. Ultimately\, the research seeks to understand the polit ics of archaeology from the ground up\, and relative to the transnational firms and actors that scholars relied on to do their work in the field.This event is co-sponsored by the Anthropology Department.
Sam Holley-Kline is currently an ACLS Fellow\, and was most recent ly assistant clinical professor in the University Honors program at the Un iversity of Maryland\, College Park. His book\, “In the Shadow of El Tajín : The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico” \;is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. He earned a Ph.D. in a nthropology from Stanford University\, and has published research in the&n bsp\;Journal of Social Archaeology\, Ethnohistory\, \;and \;Archae ological Dialogues\, among others.