Proxies, Affiliates, and Uneasy Territorialities: Exploring the Chronology and Materiality of Chimú Imperial Expansion

The Archaeology Centre presents: "Proxies, Affiliates, and Uneasy Territorialities: Exploring the Chronology and Materiality of Chimú Imperial Expansion," by Dr. Robyn Cutright (Marlene and David Grissom Professor of Anthropology, Centre College). Recently, Parker Van Valkenburgh has drawn attention to the importance of considering the materiality of imperial power as it is enacted on and through specific, historically constituted social and physical landscapes. Drawing on his evocative discussion of the alluvial deposits left by subsequent waves of empire on the north coast, and Khatchadourian's concepts of affiliates and proxies as categories of political materials that act outside or alongside the direct agency of imperial sovereigns, this talk examines the expansion of the Chimú empire in late prehispanic coastal Perú. I present my ongoing research in two northern provinces that represented different kinds of imperial peripheries: the Jequetepeque Valley, one of the earliest valleys to be conquered and consolidated, but where local continuities are well-documented in both rural communities and the multiethnic chaupiyunga, and the Chira Valley, located in the far northern reaches of the empire in an ecologically and politically transitional landscape. While at first glance the extent and date of Chimú imperial expansion seem to be well-known, this talk will demonstrate how territory and chronology become slippery in the face of attempts to define strict material correlates of imperial presence, especially given the roles of local participants and landscapes in shaping empire at distant and ethnically distinct frontiers.