Announcement: New Public Appearance

I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be giving an invited lecture with the University of Toronto Archaeology Centre on Friday, 21 November, 2014.

I'll be talking about the nexus of my past and present research in a talk titled, "Community, Neighborhood, and Habitat: An ‘Anti-Disciplinary’ Approach for Understanding Urbanism in the Long Term."

I've pasted the full announcement below. This talk integrates two lines of research and analysis that I'm currently developing.

On the one hand I'm expanding my research to examine the relationships between communities, their social institutions, and the natural environment during urbanization processes. My aim is to develop long-term perspectives and locally-practical solutions to the social and environmental issues of urbanism. I'm also, of course, continuing to advance our knowledge of the late prehispanic period in Peru (e.g., 13th and 14th centuries AD) and the Casma Polity.

 On the other hand, I've been exploring 'anarchistic' theories of knowledge production and research praxis. An 'anti-disciplinary' approach suggests reconfiguring the way we start our research. Instead of working from disciplinary expectations and boundaries, we might found our research on the assumption that reality (e.g., the problems and data that we address) has no obligation to meet our disciplinary expectations, as Marshall Sahlins would say.

Community, Neighborhood, and Habitat:

An ‘Anti-Disciplinary’ Approach

for Understanding Urbanism in the Long Term

by

David Pacifico, PhD

for

The University of Toronto Archaeology Centre

Friday, 21 November 2014

            What is the long term effect of urbanism on the social and ‘natural’ environment? David Pacifico explores this question with respect to his previous archaeological research at El Purgatorio and with respect to his newly-formed research project, The Casma Hinterland Archaeological Project (aka PAIC-CHAP, for its bilingual name). El Purgatorio was the capital city of the Casma Polity from ca. AD 700-1400. Pacifico reports on domestic practices, the political economy, and identity politics in El Purgatorio’s commoner residential neighborhood. He presents his subsequent research, which expands the analytical gaze to examine how the urbanization of El Purgatorio affected hinterland communities and their ‘natural environments’ in the periods before, during, and after the occupation of El Purgatorio. PAIC-CHAP integrates archaeological, ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and ecological research to understand urbanism as a socio-environmental process with broad and transhistorical effects.