|
Article Excerpt
Introduction
For most of the past century, academic descriptions of different types of rural landscapes primarily focused on the various material elements that comprised these areas. Such landscapes have mainly been interpreted by outsiders, who have paid limited attention to the processes and mindsets of the people who created them. This neglect does not deny that there is a long tradition of sensitivity to the role of culture in affecting the form and character of rural landscapes, notably the 'landscape school' of Carl Sauer (Sauer 1925; Matthewson and Kenser 2003). More recently, the pioneering work of Cosgrove (1988) and others (Bender 1993; Mitchell 2000; Robertson and Richards 2003) have made it clear that it is necessary to go beyond the description of empirical conditions. Instead, these contemporary scholars have argued that these landscapes are cultural constructions that have meaning for their inhabitants and are intimately linked to the social reproduction of the societies that created them. Indeed, landscapes embody material, social and cultural (meaningful) elements of these societies, and play a role in the transmission of values and environmental practices through the generations. Hence, the physical manifestation of landscape should be understood as a cultural expression of values and meaning systems. Advocates of this approach, known as the New Cultural Geography, have contributed to the study of rural landscapes by providing four innovative arguments. First, it is proposed that agricultural landscapes should be seen as 'text', with the individual elements having meanings that can be read in the landscape and which have specific roles in the transmission of cultural values. Such interpretations parallel the work of Duncan (1990) who showed how the urban landscape of historic Kandy did not simply reflect societal values but that aspects of it were actively created as representations designed to reproduce particular values and beliefs, themselves linked to specific power structures in the regimes that created these urban landscapes. Second, cultural features should not be viewed as objects, of a series of products, but understood as evidence of a process (Mitchell 2000, 294). As summarized by Davies and Gilmartin (2002, p. 18) emphasis is placed upon 'why the object was created, what agencies were involved, the alternative forms that could have been taken, the struggles over which form or trait was chosen, the power that conditioned the final choice, and the inevitable inequalities that result, among individuals, groups or spaces where the objects or activities are found'. Third, study of the use of the local environment by rural societies reveals the presence of specific environmental values that influence how areas are used, for the use and/or modification of the natural environment frequently plays a significant part in the cultural distinctiveness of various groups. That is, the new approaches offer a more holistic view, one that contrasts with a conventional Western dichotomy into 'nature' and 'society' that were embedded in earlier understandings. Fourth, the new approach stresses the need to create concepts and interpretations of landscapes that are not culture-specific or culturally dominant, and in which a more focused understanding of indigenous values and practices in the description and evaluation of these landscapes is an integral part of the interpretation.
Many recent studies have shown a growing self-consciousness of the researcher as positioned and privileged which, in turn, has led to a new sensitivity to indigenous organizational principles (e.g., Basso 1996; Escobar 1998; Steinberg 1998; Dove 2003; Duvall 2003; Hunn et al. 2003). The concern to understand local spatial concepts is salient when comparing landscapes across cultures, or in areas where competing principles for resource definition and use produce contested landscapes. In such a comparative framework, there is a heightened need to be cautious about applying concepts and labels emerging from the outsider if specific indigenous landscapes are to be properly understood. These ideas form an essential component of the discussions in post-colonial critiques that have shown that the older, privileged interpretations based on Western values are no longer sufficient. In her analyses of conservation projects in the Maya forests of Guatemala, using a 'post-colonial' approach, Sundberg (2004) focuses on the collision of conceptualizations that causes contested spaces, particularly salient in the 'daily discourses, practices and performances of natural resource management, struggle over access and control, as well as [in] the very definition of whose environmental knowledge counts'. The present article tries to address her call for 'geographically situated ethnographic research', as well as Jenny Robinson's (2003) recent call for a more 'cosmopolitan scholarship' in geography that includes regional and area studies, especially in non-Western settings.
Notwithstanding recent critiques of Western geography that point out its limitations and absences (Gregory 1994; Sidaway 2000, p. 606), (1) this article maintains that some older models are useful for advancing comparative study, even though conceived without inclusion of non-Western concepts. In this study, a model proposed by Ingold (1987), insightful in Western contexts, is modified to interpret the spatial and temporal structure of traditional Mayan agricultural landscapes. The result enables a comparison of the spatial strategies of the Maya to those introduced (and imposed) from the outside, and to interpret the long-term and ongoing effects of the resulting struggle for productive spaces. It is shown that these competing landscapes embody distinct value systems relating to the environment, illustrating how they are linked to societal and cultural reproduction and how they represent colliding social processes.
This article is divided into four parts. The first part overviews the geographical context and agricultural practices of the study area in order to appreciate the way that the forest is conceived, used and most significantly, reproduced through time in Mayan society. Second, the complexity of the Maya system is revealed through an evaluation of how the application of the notions of 'nature' and 'land' leads to an incomplete understanding of the Maya landscape; a misunderstanding that continues to underwrite policies for 'introduced' agricultural and tourist expansion into the region. In the third section, Ingold's model of dimensionality is critiqued and extended in order to provide a basis for cross-cultural comparisons of productive landscapes, and as a schematic summary of the Maya conception and use of the landscape, one which is spatially and temporally complex. Finally, indigenous use is contrasted with the way that key landscape features are being destroyed at the present time in accordance with imported Western agricultural practices and embedded values. This destruction is creating a landscape that is unsustainable, not only economically and culturally, but also in environmental terms.
The Maya Study Area (2)
The study area chosen for this work occupies the area around the town of Chemax, located 28 kilometres east of the city of Valladolid on the highway running from Merida, in the state of Yucatan, to Cancun, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico (Figure 1). It is the capital of the municipality with the same name, with a total population of 25,085 and an area of 1,028 [km.sup.2], rendering a population density in the municipality of 24.4 persons/[km.sup.2] (XII Censo Yucatan 2000). The topography and biotic environment of the region of Chemax are typical of the Yucatan peninsula, with a karst landscape: poor, patchy, thin soils on a rocky, flat terrain. The only natural source of water is found in the occasional sinkholes (dolinas or cenotes), which in the study area fall to the water table at 24-27 m depth. The climate is tropical, hot and humid with an annual average precipitation of 1,500 mm falls primarily in the May to October period, while average annual daily temperatures reach 26[degrees]C, with minimum winter temperatures of 16[degrees]C (Revel-Mouroz 1980). According to Rzedowsky (1978) the arboreal vegetation of the region corresponds to bosque tropical subcaducifolio (tropical semideciduous forest). (3)
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The population of Chemax municipality is predominantly Maya and speak Yucatec Maya (henceforth called Maya). According to the latest official census of 2000, 97.3 percent of the inhabitants of 5 years of age or older in the municipality speak Maya, of which 35 percent are reported as unilingual Maya speakers (XII Censo Yucatan 2000). The small minority of the population that does not speak Maya lives almost exclusively on the perimeter of the central square of the municipal capital of Chemax. Approximately one-third of the Maya population live in the capital, with the remainder located in hundreds of small settlements distributed throughout the municipality. As well as being a municipality within the formal administration of Mexico, Chemax is also a Maya cah. Local inhabitants regularly use this term and concept, which describes a large Maya settlement area with its own complex social and spatial organization. Chemax is arguably the most important of several cah located in the central Yucatan.
The fieldwork for this and related studies was undertaken over the period of 1979 to the present, during which time the author established residence in the community for a total of 22 months. The main goal of this (ongoing) research is to reach an understanding of local concepts for organizing and interpreting the landscape, including productive and reproductive spaces, in a context of local, regional and extra-regional cultural contacts and clashes. A basic research question is: How are social and cultural factors encoded in the spatial organization of the human population in this region? Research methods for the collection of information included simple and participant observation, interviews and informal discussions, focused survey questionnaires, as well as consultation with numerous members of the community on the initial syntheses of the data collected and the conclusions reached. Hundreds of people in the central settlement and hinterland have been consulted during the course of this research. Data organization and analysis involves mapping and photo interpretation, qualitative data analysis, quantitative analysis of survey material and the interpretation of significant patterns found in these analyses.
The longitudinal nature of this study has facilitated a continual feedback process in the collection and assembly of data and...
|
