Excavating Mexico: Archaeology and the Subsoil Politics of State Formation, 1821-1944
Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History
First Advisor
Joseph, Gilbert
Abstract
Archaeological excavations transformed Mexico from the ground up. As modern Latin American nations emerged from empires, they struggled to forge new relationships among people, land, and state. In many cases, this resulted in fierce struggles for control of terrain and borders. This dissertation examines a parallel trajectory: how states came to conceptualize and govern what lies beneath the earth’s surface. Since Mexico’s independence in 1821, ancient monuments and artifacts have played a fundamental role in constructing a national identity and shaping ideas about race, Indigeneity, and colonialism. Beyond the power of cultural discourse, excavations built new models of territorial sovereignty and shaped one of the defining processes of Mexican state formation: the nationalization of subsoil resources. Scholarship has largely taken Mexico’s framework of subterranean sovereignty for granted, accepting it as the implementation of a set of inherent rights and state powers. “Excavating Mexico” rethinks this narrative and reveals a contested reality on the ground. As people from all sectors of society conducted excavations, they engaged in debates about the nature of property, upended traditions of land use, and challenged the limits of the government’s jurisdiction. In municipal petitions and supreme court litigation alike, they debated who had the right to excavate and what claim, if any, the state should have upon their finds. I argue that through these contests, archaeological excavations became key testing grounds for regulatory mechanisms and legal frameworks that extended the state’s power underground.
Recommended Citation
Bustamante, Andrés, "Excavating Mexico: Archaeology and the Subsoil Politics of State Formation, 1821-1944" (2024). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1397.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1397
