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Paper Information:
Type: Paper
Paper Title: THE ARCHITECTURE OF CIVILITY: TRANSFORMING MAROONS INTO COLONIAL SUBJECTS IN LATE 18TH CENTURY VERA CRUZ
Author: ADELA AMARAL   
Date/Time: Sat., 3:00 PM
Co-Author(s): ADELA AMARAL 
Abstract: This paper examines two social identities, cimarron (maroon) & “proper” colonial subject that circulated in late 18th century Spanish Colonial Vera Cruz. These identities are viewed as materially and discursively constructed, self espoused as well as imposed. Using architectural and documentary evidence from the resettled maroon community, Nuestra Señora de los Morenos de Amapa (Amapa), this paper disputes the scholarly conception of the “remote” maroon society and uncovers its conceptual contradiction. In colonial Vera Cruz, it is precisely the act of social circulation that blurred the border between maroons and proper colonial subjects. Using resettlement petitions as well as the urban plan and architecture of the resettled maroon town, this paper considers the notions and material constructs of civility. Much like the social identities of maroon and proper colonial subject, these ideas and materials were neither straightforward nor simply imposed by Spanish officials on the maroons. The Amapa maroons actively and consciously participated in the production, maintenance, and negotiation of the proper colonial subject identity. The social identities in question and the built environment in Amapa are taken as many-sided and compounded experiences that were the product of multiple groups whose social understandings were themselves interlocked.

Program Number: 4-0775
Session Title: THE ARCHITECTURE OF IDENTITY
Session Sponsor: Archaeology Division
Session Date/Time: Sat., 1:45 PM-5:30 PM
Organizer(s): KATHRYN SAMPECK (Illinois State University) 
Chair(s): ELIZABETH SCOTT  
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