Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 26.2 (2013) 211-234 ISSN (Print) 0952-7648 ISSN (Online) 1743-1700 Feasting the Community: Ritual and Power on the Sicilian Acropoleis (10th– 6th centuries bc) Meritxell Ferrer Martín Department of Classics, 450 Serra Mall, Building 110, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305-2145, USA E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract In recent years, the emergence of new theoretical perspectives such as post-structuralism, post-colonialism and feminism in the study of colonial situations in the ancient Mediterranean have broken the hegemony long held by acculturation. Earlier perspectives focused mainly on the colonies, Greek or Phoenician, and considered them as the only active agents, while local populations were traditionally interpreted as static and monolithic entities, passive recipients of colonial innovations. Moving away from these interpretations and approaching new ways of reading colonial histories, the focus of this article is centered on the native Sicilian people, particularly on the recuperation of their agency, through an analysis of their ritual politics. In this case I examine processes of making social identities and the idea of community that these peoples constructed through the collective practices carried out in their main communal ritual settings, the acropoleis. Keywords: Sicily, feasting, ritual politics, cultural contact, community, social identities, acropoleis Introduction In line with this reappraisal, recent archaeo- logical studies have put an end to the subordi- In recent decades, several studies from differ- nation and marginalization that ritual practices ent disciplines have recognized the importance have often held in archaeological narratives of ritual in political action and in community (e.g. Barrett 1991; 1994; Brück 1999; Joyce construction and representation.