Few concepts in the anthropology of colonialism stir as much debate as hybridity, a term borrowed from postcolonial theory in literary studies that—initially at least—was used to refer to the actions of marginalized and subaltern groups to subvert prevailing relations of power. While archaeologists have emphasized group ideologies and personal motivations that promote cultural mixing, the absence of analytical frameworks for modeling how such mixing unfolds in practice makes it difficult to reconcile philosophical debates about hybridity and related approaches. This article lays out such a framework, starting with an assumption that the problem of mixed material culture is structural at its core and thus requires a structural solution. Building on the conception of social structure promoted by sociologist William Sewell Jr., the proposed model considers the incorporation of novel forms at two different loci of agency—the object and the assemblage—and through their respective practices of production and consumption. The object-assemblage model is used, in turn, to explore a colonial encounter between the Native town of Joara and the Spanish garrison, Fort San Juan, from 1566 to 1568, uniquely allowing us to envision how native and settler participants engaged new ideas and resources to transform their material cultures.

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遇见新奇

殖民主义人类学中很少有概念能像混合性一样引起如此多的争论，混合性是从文学研究中的后殖民理论中借用的术语，至少最初是用来指边缘化和从属群体颠覆盛行权力关系的行为。虽然考古学家强调促进文化混合的群体意识形态和个人动机，但由于缺乏对这种混合在实践中如何展开进行建模的分析框架，因此很难调和关于混合性和相关方法的哲学辩论。本文提出了这样一个框架，首先假设混合材料文化问题的核心是结构性的，因此需要一个结构性的解决方案。基于社会学家小威廉·休厄尔 (William Sewell Jr.) 提出的社会结构概念，提议的模型考虑了在两个不同的代理场所——对象和组合——以及通过它们各自的生产和消费实践结合新形式。反过来，使用对象组装模型来探索 1566 年至 1568 年间 Joara 本土城镇与西班牙驻军 Fort San Juan 之间的殖民遭遇，独特地让我们能够想象本土和定居者参与者如何参与新的想法和资源来改变他们的物质文化。