In North America, archaeologists have utilized practice theory and the concept of agency in a variety of research contexts ranging from the study of prehistoric technologies to concerns with the emergence of social inequality to the negotiation of social identities. Various recent studies of the Mississippian period and the rise of chiefdoms in the American bottomland, for instance, have made explicit use of agency theory in attempts to explain the transition from egalitarian to hierarchical societies in this region. Archaeologist Timothy Pauketat, who emphasizes the mutually enabling and constraining nature of the relationship between practice, agency, and structure in his work at the site of Cahokia, offers a particularly good example. In looking to explain the construction of the enormous mounds that characterize Mississippian centers and the massive amounts of labor they represent, he focused on the interests and agency of different segments of society. He argues that the practices associated with mound building were based in a pre-existing social structure but that as the scale and materiality of these practices changed, so too did the structures within which they were enacted. The end result for the Mississippian peoples was the hardening of social differences, the emergence of a hereditary elite, and the creation of a powerful chiefdom - unforeseen consequences of the interplay of agency, practice, and structure.
In another archaeological study focused on the politics of identity and resistance, Stephen Silliman explores the role of agency in interpreting indigenous responses to the colonial enterprise in nineteenth-century California, emphasizing both the agency of the native population and the material practices of everyday life. Archaeological excavations at the Mexican land-grant site of Rancho Petaluma in northern California produced a wealth of both western-manufactured and traditional native goods that were found in close association with one another across the site. Attending to the large quantities of lithic debris and stone tools recovered, the investigator argued that the continuing reliance on this category of material culture represented a political choice on the part of native residents - one that speaks to processes of contestation and negotiation as well as the agency of native peoples within the changing structures and practices of everyday life. Focusing on the role of lithics as material agents, he concludes that their presence at this historic period site signified a conscious strategy on the part of indigenous workers to activate or solidify precolonial identities and associations.
World History
