Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonoran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to RepublicDuke University Press, 2006 M01 18 - 456 pages Landscapes of Power and Identity is a groundbreaking comparative history of two colonies on the frontiers of the Spanish empire—the Sonora region of northwestern Mexico and the Chiquitos region of eastern Bolivia’s lowlands—from the late colonial period through the middle of the nineteenth century. An innovative combination of environmental and cultural history, this book reflects Cynthia Radding’s more than two decades of research on Mexico and Bolivia and her consideration of the relationships between human societies and the geographic landscapes they inhabit and create. At first glance, Sonora and Chiquitos are quite different: one a scrub-covered desert, the other a tropical rainforest of the greater Amazonian and Paraguayan river basins. Yet the regions are similar in many ways. Both were located far from the centers of colonial authority, organized into Jesuit missions and linked to the principal mining centers of New Spain and the Andes, and then absorbed into nation-states in the nineteenth century. In each area, the indigenous communities encountered European governors, missionaries, slave hunters, merchants, miners, and ranchers. Radding’s comparative approach illuminates what happened when similar institutions of imperial governance, commerce, and religion were planted in different physical and cultural environments. She draws on archival documents, published reports by missionaries and travelers, and previous histories as well as ecological studies and ethnographies. She also considers cultural artifacts, including archaeological remains, architecture, liturgical music, and religious dances. Radding demonstrates how colonial encounters were conditioned by both the local landscape and cultural expectations; how the colonizers and colonized understood notions of territory and property; how religion formed the cultural practices and historical memories of the Sonoran and Chiquitano peoples; and how the conflict between the indigenous communities and the surrounding creole societies developed in new directions well into the nineteenth century. |
From inside the book
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... fields. As this comparative project took shape in my mind, it brought together visual, sensual, and intellectual impressions of the contrasting geographies and histories of these two regions. I did not have a period of long-term ...
... fields , liturgical music and religious dances , and processional and roadside crosses that inscribe layers of meaning for historical landscapes . Their content is tangible and symbolic , objective and performative , leaving its im ...
... fields dry out , and the heavy work of cutting down tree trunks and clearing away under brush is necessary to plant the hillsides and raised ground with crops that yield good harvests of maize , which is the wheat of the Indies , rice ...
... fields and wells of the Tohono O'odham ( “ those who emerged from the earth ” 24 ) —create visible signs of land use and of concerted human action over time . Landscapes produced in specific localities merge with imperial borderlands in ...
... field of postcolonial studies developed by literary critics , anthropologists , and historians has coalesced into a common set of issues and questions particularly applicable both conceptually and historically to the British , Dutch ...
Contents
1 | |
19 | |
Communities Missions and Colonial Markets | 55 |
Community and Conflicting Claims to Property | 89 |
Chapter 4 Ethnic Mosaics and Gendered Identities | 117 |
Political Culture Goverance and Mobilization | 162 |
Spiritual Power Ritual and Knowledge | 196 |
Transitions from Colony to Republic | 240 |
Chapter 8 Contested Landscapes in Continental Borderlands | 295 |
Notes | 327 |
Glossary | 375 |
Bibliography | 385 |
Index | 423 |