The Organization of Chipped-Stone Economies at Piedras Negras ...

which represents nondiscursive practices (i.e., doxa). Orthodoxy is those dispositions and
practices that are carried by people in a position of dominance.
Eagleton (2005:270) criticized the naturalized ideas and practices denoted by
doxa, and argued that doxa did not leave room for more cognized aspects of everyday
practice that nevertheless legitimate the existing social relations. Bourdieuvian theory
does not describe how multiple positions can be held simultaneously by a single
individual, or how different points of view are expressed in many ways by a number of
individuals in the same group. It appears as a Marxian dialectic of class struggle. In the
passage above Bourdieu hints at this struggle by creating a dichotomy between those in
power and those who want it. Other situations can be more complex wherein many
individuals, with different personal ideologies, vacillate between discursive and
nondiscursive practice, and who “challenge” or do not “challenge” the established order
in a predictable or group fashion. The Bourdieuvian model, however, remains a useful
hermeneutic device for understanding the ways in which discursive practice can interact
with existing, possibly dominant, doctrines. I do not see every action as a conscious or
unconscious attempt to secure material or symbolic capital (i.e., ultimate economic
benefit). Instead, the framework discussed by Bourdieu describes the possible ways that
economic reality can be changed through discursive action and also how rare this might
be.
For the ancient Maya the symbolic aspects of production and exchange were
emphasized, not simply as a cosmological framework for crafting practices, but also to
effect some kind of result or gain. In these instances practices are brought into the
32