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

In a contested field of cultural production, one way to negotiate the dominance of
a given technology is by emphasizing a connection between that technology and local
mythology. A preexisting mythological charter may surface from doxic experience and
be more or less consciously understood to be valuable in social negotiation. In this sense,
it can become ideological in nature; that is, a suite of ideas that become related to politics
and power. Although the practice of rulership is an obvious example of the intersection
between mythology and political ideology, it demonstrates how mythological charter can
legitimize a particular social station. Inomata (2001) emphasized this kind of relationship
for technological agents by modeling an ideologically-loaded form of craft production.
Ideologically-loaded production binds particular mythologies with technology and
legitimizes the exclusive practice of certain forms of production, and can thus embody an
exclusionary tactic to monopolize a certain body of cultural capital, or esoteric
production knowledge. According to Inomata, ideologically-loaded production for elite
craft specialists has the effect of creating and maintaining social difference. This is true,
of course, as long as the society as a whole withstands this form of social differentiation
(orthodoxy), or this social distinction is naturalized and becomes a part of doxa (i.e., a
successful form of hegemonic control).
Ritualized production can similarly come to the foreground in fields of cultural
production. The combination of ritual prowess and technological skill may have been a
resource for negotiation during times of crisis and social change (see the concept of
practical politics as proposed by Silliman [2001]). In these cases ritualized production
can be considered as another form of ideologically-loaded production. However,
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