Title: A “Substitute” for “Civilization”: Indian Archaeology and Colonization in Porter’s “María Concepción”

Abstract: The short story “María Concepción” by Katherine Anne Porter is centered around an indigenous Indian woman in the Mexican Revolution who denies her own tradition but believes in Catholicism. It refracts the purpose of national identity construction of American archaeological project in the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, as well as the complex colonial relationships in Mexico. The female protagonist, María Concepción, though of Native American descent, tries to become an “inheritor” of white civilization. However, she can never be fully accepted into the white system and thus becomes merely a “substitute” for “civilization.” While Porter critiques the cultural colonial project of American imperialism, she cannot escape the influence of the hierarchy of civilizations. Her writings of Indian civilization ultimately succumb to the trope of “primitivism.”

Keywords: Katherine Anne Porter, Indian civilization, archaeology, colonization

Author: Zhaofang Cao, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Foreign Languages, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2025.02.007