Dita Auziņa

Networks of Dependencies: Household's Inter-dynamics in Colonial Mosquito Shore

In my research, I am interested in how asymmetrical dependencies within societies can be mapped in networks. To do so, I propose to analyze the access different groups in a society have to resources such as commodities, power and status. I am using a combination of archaeological, historical and ethnographical sources and analyze data with digital methods such as Social Network Analyses, Remote Sensing and GIS based analyses.

My case study is based on the Mosquito Shore which was a part of wide areas of the Western Coast of Caribbean who remained on the fringes of the European empires throughout a big part of the colonial period of the Americas. The inhabitants of these territories had opportunities to negotiate their own autonomy and exercise their own hierarchies in a different way than defined by the structures of the Empires.

Mosquito shore, the Caribbean coast of present-day Nicaragua and Honduras maintained its autonomous status at least until the nineteenth century. Despite maintaining autonomy, the inhabitants of the shore took active participation in the global processes, including slave raiding and trade. While being dominated by Miskito speaking African-Amerindian descendant people, the Mosquito shore welcomed and forced a wide variety of people of European, American and African origin to settle and establish households together there. These mixed intersectional households became a place where asymmetrical dependencies were created, maintained and shifted among groups of society.

since 2019
Ph.D. in Anthropology of the Americas, University of Bonn, Germany

2014–2017
M.A. in Archaeology, University of Leiden, The Netherlands

2009–2012
B.A. in History, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

2015–2018
Archaeologist in the Project "Technology Transfer in the Processing of Mineral Resources in Earlier Times (TECHTRANS)," University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

2015–2016
Research Associate in the Project "PACEN," University of Leiden, The Netherlands

2017–2021
Archaeological surveyor, Photogrammetry specialist and trainer in Iraq, Emergency Heritage Management Scheme, The British Museum, UK

2015–2017
Archaeological surveyor and mapping supervisor in the PACEN project in Nicaragua, Leiden University, The Netherlands

2016
Archaeological surveyor in the NEXUS project in the Dominican Republic, University of Leiden, The Netherlands