7
Informal Imperialism beyond Europe: The
Archaeology of the Great Civilizations in
Latin America, China, and Japan
INFORMAL IMPERIALISM AND THE EXOTIC:
ENCOUNTERS AND DIVERGENCESThis chapter examines two very diVerent examples of informal imperialism. The
Wrst takes place in Latin America, an area colonized by the Europeans for three
centuries and politically independent from the 1810s and 1820s (see map 1).
There the ancient Great Civilizations were mainly concentrated in Mexico and
Peru, extending to a limited extent to other countries such as Argentina, Belize,
Bolivia, and Ecuador. These countries provide the focus for the following pages,
whereas a description of developments in the others is reserved for the discus-
sion of internal colonialism in Chapter 10. As mentioned in Chapter 4, after an
initial use of monumental archaeology at the time of the Latin-American
independence, the emergence of racism led to a process of disengagement: elites
only extended their interest in the origins of the nation back to the period of the
arrival of the Europeans in the area. The local scholarly pride for the pre-
Hispanic past re-emerged, mainly from the 1870s, timidly atWrst but soon
gained suYcient strength to allow indigenous elites a novel rapprochement with
their native monuments. Only when this happened would the tension between
the national past and the discourse of inferiority advocated by the informal
colonial powers be felt. The latter had been formed by explorers, collectors
and scholars from the Western world. These were, to start with, mainly French
and British, and later also scholars from the US and Germany. A few of them
would diverge from the line taken by the majority, and Mexico City was chosen,
in the early twentieth century, to undertake a unique experiment: the creation of
an international school to overcome the eVects of imperialism. The political
circumstances, however, unfortunately led to the failure of this trial.
The other case discussed in this chapter is located in East and Central Asia,
in China and Japan and, by extension, in Korea. These countries had been able