Doctoral Dissertation Research: Creating a Spatial History Methodology to Assess Past and Current Settlement and Governance

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation research project examines the largely unexplored spatiality of conquest, the conflicts over the emerging spatial order during the decades that followed, and how these conflicts have been or could be represented differently from conquering versus indigenous groups. To do so, the researchers will develop a spatial history methodology that incorporates GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software for the visualization and analysis of historical data across space as well as time. In this way, spatial history can serve as a form of virtual history: a way to reconstruct or re-imagine a different world with all the possibility it held for its diverse inhabitants. Though GIS has long been known for spatial capabilities, the temporal dimension has been slower to follow suite, particularly in cultural studies. Using Historical GIS to answer the spatial questions (e.g., how far did colonial power reach?) can in turn lend answers to deeper questions about just what conquest meant and in what ways it failed or succeeded. As a result, more people will be able to actually "see" local/indigenous knowledge as a possible means to assist in solving local and regional problems, expanding the lessons learned in a variety of pasts in a way that informs twenty-first century challenges. To answer these questions, the researchers will employ a hybrid quantitative-qualitative GIS methodology that will accommodate the typically less precise, qualitative information found in colonial-era historical sources, including conflicting understandings of the world. For example, using GIS to reconstruct the hidden spatial narratives of historical sources, a series of maps will be created showing the degree of power and autonomy indigenous people wielded away from imperial centers such as cities and ports. Recent historical research, largely coming from a cultural perspective, has challenged the myth that the European conquest of indigenous societies in the Americas was quick, absolute, universal, and complete. However, conquest was as much a spatial phenomenon as a cultural one. Unlike the maps that still tend to be more commonly used in textbooks that typically show the Americas neatly divided among Spanish, French, British, and Portuguese spaces, a different representation of contested colonial territories would be pockmarked with holes and shaded with gradients showing overlapping or partial control, indicating regions outside full colonial purview. The Peruvian Andes' environmental diversity along with the dramatic changes brought by the European invasion (beginning in 1532) as well as the Columbian Exchange makes the sixteenth-century Andes a rich and compelling case study for understanding an equally transformative and volatile period: the twenty-first century with the growing problems caused by global capitalism, rapid urbanization, and climate shifts. The results from this spatial analysis will be shared with the academic community through a series of talks and papers in Peru, North America, and Spain and with the general public through the creation of an online geo-historical database.