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Alf Hornborg

Alf Hornborg

Professor emeritus

Alf Hornborg

Time-space Appropriation in the Inka Empire : A Study of Imperial Metabolism

Author

  • RAGNHEIDUR BOGADÓTTIR

Summary, in English

This thesis analyzes some aspects of the appropriation of labor time and natural space in the Inka Empire (ca. AD 1400 – 1532) in order to illuminate the cultural organization of Inka imperial metabolism. Rather than understanding Inka imperialism simply as a political process with socioecological consequences, it is investigated as an ecological process organized through specific cultural categories. The Inka imperial economy is conceptualized in terms of transfers of time and space between different categories of people.
The thesis thus addresses long-standing questions regarding the economic operation of the Inka Empire as well as central issues in general social theory. It demonstrates how imperial power is based on biophysical flows of embodied labor and land, organized by specific cultural permutations of reciprocity and redistribution. The thesis focuses on estimating these flows through analyses of time-space appropriation. This is done by reconstructing, on the basis of archaeological, historical and ethnographic data, the production processes of three emblematic Inka artifacts: textiles, chicha (maize beer), and stone walls.

Department/s

  • Human Ecology

Publishing year

2016

Language

English

Publication/Series

Lund Studies in Human Ecology

Issue

15

Document type

Dissertation

Publisher

Lund University

Topic

  • Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified

Keywords

  • Inka Empire
  • time-space appropriation
  • ecologically unequal exchange
  • historical political ecology
  • human ecology
  • imperial metabolism
  • economic anthropology

Status

Published

Supervisor

  • Alf Hornborg

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1403-5022
  • ISBN: 978-91-7623-898-1

Defence date

16 September 2016

Defence time

10:00

Defence place

Flygeln, Geocentrum I, Sölvegatan 10, Lund

Opponent

  • Cathy L. Costin (Professor)