Landscapes of Labor: Architecture and Identity at a Mexican Hacienda

Abstract

When seeking to understand past social dynamics, archaeologists often turn to architecture. This paper presents a diachronic study of the architecture of the central Mexican Hacienda San Miguel Acocotla to illuminate how the built environment may be used to control people and transform individual and community identity. Data derived from archaeological, ethnographic, and historical research together provide a rare longitudinal and detailed dataset spanning the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Using an analysis that combines space syntax and phenomenology, I find that a mid-nineteenth century renovation of hacienda architecture reflected a contemporary national program of modernization directed at redefining rural labor and community structure.