I'm Bringing It.

Well, on the bright side, this research week has gone much more smoothly than last week. No unexpected data! (Yet--knock on wood!)

I had a little less luck as far as hearing back from Dr. Heckenberger and Dr. Eriksen goes: Dr. Heckenberger emailed me this morning saying that he was looking forward to discussing these "great questions"..."in the near future," as he is currently conducting fieldwork until mid August and does not have a copy of the book with him. I really hope he meant it when he said "near," as I need to have my research completed and submitted by August 31 for the application to be part of the International Conference of Americanists presentation next year. So time is of the essence!

I'm still holding out on the hope that Dr. Eriksen will email me back, but I figured that I might as well be productive in other areas while I waited, right? So I began to make a chiefdom checklist. Many of the articles and case studies concerning chiefdoms that I have read so far have cited many similar qualities that identify a settlement as a chiefdom. I have organized and made a list of these points, and have begun going back over my notes from Heckenberger's The Ecology of Power to identify the features that the Upper Xingu (UX) shares with these other theoretical or observed models. After all, much of the difficulty concerning the uncertainty of the presence of chiefdoms in the UX results from the fact that there remains holes in our understanding of what exactly a chiefdom is.

But I'm getting frustrated. I picked up on this several times over the course of reading a variety of articles and works, but now that I'm actually trying to be organized about cataloguing chiefdom traits, I'm feeling a bit peeved. Because here's half of the problem: people just throw the words "chiefdom," "chieftancy," "chief," etc. around willy-nilly! And sometimes they don't say "chiefdom" when they want to, but rather "re-invent the wheel" and splice in some clever-sounding description that they manufactured. No wonder the issue of defining "chiefdom" has endured for so long--people are not communicating! This (along with another similar instance) has made me realize exactly how important it is to be consistent with technical vocabulary. And maybe that, too, is another source of confusion; as discussion concerning the connotations of the term takes place, "chiefdom" can no longer be employed as a causal noun. It is slowly acquiring specific traits. I've begun to make a list of topics that I absolutely must hit on in my presentation of this research, and "Clarifying 'chiefdom'--please use responsibly" is at the top of my list.

But another instance that has begun to bother me is one that I encountered occasionally as I read through Heckenberger's work. So as I read his work, I of course am keeping in mind my own research questions, looking at how what he is saying applies to what I am trying to learn. I mean, that's one of the basic processes of research. Yet every so often, I would come across a passage that made me feel like Heckenberger was reading my mind...analyzing my research questions...and flushing them down the toilet. Here's one of the more frustrating examples (and I highlighted the part that literally made my jaw drop). Heckenberger is discussing the comparisons between current settlements and the prehistoric ones, and hones in on the fact that as time has progressed, there has been a significant decrease in the population and expanse of settlements. Indeed, as we have discussed, the societies living in the UX today operate on a scale that is much smaller than the prehistoric occupants. He asserts on page 181:

"But, assuming there were 'chiefdoms' in the UX in 1492, what do we then call Xinguanos now: Tribes? Simple? Small-scale? This might be rephrased to ask not if they were chiefdoms or why and when they became so, as if there is a priori agreement as to what constitutes one in the first place, but, instead, how are they or were they chiefdoms in chiefly societies. In other words, what would a genuinely Amazonian complex society look like if we stumbled upon it?"

OK so first off, I remembered learning what "a priori" meant back in like 10th grade when we had those obnoxiously orange vocabulary books that we were expected to adopt as a new life-source. And I'll admit, that I secretly (ok, maybe openly) loved completing the vocab books. Yet I had forgotten the definition/translation of "a priori". I was pretty sure that when I looked it up, I would still feel offended, but I had to bite the bullet and make sure.

According to the lovely Merriam-Webster:

A Priori

1. a : deductive

    b : relating to or derived by reasoning from self-evident propositions

    c : presupposed by experience

2. a : being without examination or analysis : presumptive

    b : formed or conceived beforehand

— a priori adverb

— apri·or·i·ty \-ˈȯr-ə-tē\ noun

1. There's no a priori reason to think your expenses will remain the same in a new city.
2. <an a priori argument for the defendant's innocence>

Synonyms: deductive, deducible, derivable, inferable (also inferrible), inferential, reasoned

Antonyms: nondeductive

OK, so I can see his qualms with slapping a catch-all "chiefdom" label on societies without taking the time to explore what the term really means and how it relates to the society, but I can't help but feel like he's missing a really great opportunity to clarify that even though labels tend to be viewed negatively ("How dare you label me! I AM MY OWN PERSON! etc. etc.), carefully formulating labels in the realm of defining social structures is actually very useful. It can facilitate in comparing and contrasting societies all over the world, illustrating not just the ways in which cultures are the same (which I still think is really cool--I mean, come on, civilizations separated by hundreds of thousands of miles existing in a time when the fastest mode of transportation was probably riding a buffalo actually SHARING a common feature?! That's incredible!) but also demonstrate the characteristics of cultures that are beautifully unique. I feel like a lot of the heat that the attempt to define "chiefdom" has been hit with is coming from the recent turn in the social science community towards a more postmodern approach in which personhood and unique lifeways and the symbolism of life have become so prized that any attempt that is even remotely reminiscent of focusing on the big picture has become taboo. I am not trying to critique the postmodernist perspective here, but rather call attention to the fact that instead of waging war on people who don't adopt the same approach, there should be a little more flexibility and the consideration that what is "different" is not always "wrong," but that there is the possibility of creating a complementary analysis.

So you know what? I personally DO think that the questions of "if" the early settlers of the UX ever evolved into chiefdoms, as well as "why and when they became so" are important. I think that's exactly what needs some attention, and I'm going to give it the thought that I think it needs. The similar instances of having my research questions shot down that I ran into before this virtual diatribe on page 181 made me a little nervous--was I going about this project all wrong?--but now I'm more certain than ever that this investigation into prehistoric chiefdoms in the UX is a perspective that desperately needs to be brought to the table.
And I'm bringing it.
Booyah.