Political Ecology and Environmental Justice in Archaeology: Constructing the Legend of the White City in Honduras

Keywords: Archaeology, political ecology, Marxist dialectics, environmental justice, Honduras
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Interdisciplinary approaches combining insights from archaeology and political ecology have a long legacy in fields such as environmental archaeology and historical ecology. Recent interventions in archaeology and political ecology have called for increased attention to how the proven methods in one field can help answer questions in the other, moving towards a more accurate synthesis of past socio-ecological interactions. However, one aspect of this collaboration that has not been sufficiently explored is how to problematize the production of hermeneutics in the formation of archaeological knowledge from the lens of political ecology. This paper discusses how archaeologists and explorers constructed knowledge about the existence of an archaeological site known as the White City in eastern Honduras. The continuous search for a lost city in the jungles of Honduras maps into a narrative of a modern El Dorado with consequences for frontier-making and territorialization. A historiography of archaeological research in Honduras shows how social relations have shaped the interpretation of the White City as an archaeological site. Political ecology contributes to our understanding of the social construction of archaeological knowledge in frontier regions as part of an environmental formation that elicits forms of territorialization. Increased awareness of the dialectics between archaeological knowledge and territory can inform approaches to foster a public archaeology committed to environmental justice.