"History and Hierarchy in the Prehispanic Tarascan State: A Syntagmatic Analysis of the Relación de Michoacán" MA Thesis, University of Florida, August 2003. PDF
The Relación de Michoacán is the primary ethnohistoric source for the study of the prehispanic Tarascan State, the second largest conquest empire in Mesoamerica at the time of European contact. The document was written only about 20 years after European contact and originally contained chapters concerned with the official Tarascan State history, bureaucratic functioning, and the state religion, although the chapters on the religion have been lost. For this reason, studies of Tarascan religion and ideology have been forced to concentrate on obscure and sparse passages in the remainder of the document. Furthermore, the official state history has traditionally been interpreted literally, as an accurate account of the events that led to Tarascan State formation. The study presented here, by utilizing a structuralist analysis that accounts for both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects of the official state history contained within the document, contributes important new insights into how the Tarascan royal dynasty legitimated their position at the apex of society. By drawing on and constructing, when necessary, religious concepts as well as fundamental divisions in Tarascan society, the official state history constitutes a logically ordered sequence of events that should not necessarily be interpreted as literal history. Rather, through syntagmatic juxtaposition and paradigmatic association, the narrative constructs the hierarchical position of the Tarascan royal dynasty as the superior synthesis of the fundamental supernatural and social categories of Tarascan society.

"Hierarchy, History, and Ideology in the Tarascan State: a Structuralist Analysis of the Relación de Michoacán." Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Atlanta, GA, December 16, 2004.
See abstract above

"History, Ideology, and Problematic Assumptions in the Ethnohistoric Inquiry into the Development of the Tarascan State", paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, April 2006, San Juan Puerto Rico
The Relación de Michoacán has emerged as the preeminent source for the study of the Tarascan State. Whether alone or as the basis for interpreting the archaeological record, literalist interpretations of the RM have guided research of the development of the Tarascan State. I argue that the literalist position is unfounded, however. Furthermore, an alternative interpretation is proposed in which the historical details contained within the document can be explained through the cultural logic of the indigenous conception of hierarchy. This position can provide alternate avenues for the archaeological investigation of the development of the Tarascan State.

"Difference of Perception, Perception of Difference: Architecture and Hierarchy in Ancient West Mexico." Paper presented at the Annual Midwest Mesoamericanist Meetings of Archaeology and Ethnohistory in Lexington, KY, March 13, 2004.
As the body of data grows concerning the presence of complex societies and their antecedents in West Mexico, this area constitutes another example of long-term trends toward greater complexity that is worthy of study. Furthermore, given the somewhat ambiguous status of West Mexico within Mesoamerica, the region provides an interesting contrast with the rest of Mesoamerica in terms of both the processes and resultant sociopolitical forms of cultural evolution.
The specific area of study is central Jalisco, which by the Classic period had given rise to the Teuchitlan tradition, a large complex society that has been called a state or state-like society (Weigand and Beekman 1998). While the influences of the Teuchitlan tradition were felt outside central Jalisco and the cultural antecedents that the tradition was founded upon were dispersed over a larger area, the area of central Jalisco constituted a core area through the centuries of sociopolitical development (Beekman 2000).
While our understandings of the nature and processes involved in the transformations from simple to complex societies in the area are largely in their infancy, certain trends have been identified. Drawing upon these trends, attempts to understand the growth of sociopolitical complexity have relied on quantifications of labor as well as the need of elites to attract more clients. This paper attempts to rephrase the processes of social transformation not in terms of quantifiable labor hours or individuals who can fit into a patio but rather in terms of the perception of various distinctions created by the different forms of architecture that characterize the periods of social transformation resulting in the stratified societies of the Classic period. Therefore the theoretical insights of a phenomenology of perception based particularly upon the writings of Merleau-Ponty (1962) and Barrett (1994) will be drawn upon to conclude that the power of different architectural forms was not only in how many people could participate, but also in how many differentiations could be created and how different architectural forms differentially affected the practice of everyday life.

"Altars and Representations of Houses in Olmec Architecture, and their Role in the Negotiation of Rulership." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting for the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans, LA, November 20, 2002.
The fact that the tabletop altars/thrones created by the people referred to as the Olmec in the Middle and Late Formative periods in Mesoamerica mimic household altars of the Maya region and the consequences of this relationship was examined by Gillespie. This paper builds on that recognition and examines the effect of these monuments on the space around the many altars found at Olmec sites. This effect relates interestingly to research done considering the layout of many Mesoamerican sites according to cosmological principles, particularly at the Olmec site of La Venta. Essentially, the hypothesis presented here is that the Olmec altars were not monuments in isolation, but due to the constructions surrounding them, marked the space in front of the altars as the inside or property of a house. This would have symbolically incorporated those people within the vicinity of the altar into the house of the ruler who owned or made use of the altar, and involved them in the rituals of this noble house. This metaphorical relationship based on kinship was likely the way in which the hierarchy of the system was reinforced and access to the rights and resources of the ruling house was regulated.