Colonialism and Landscape in the Americas: Material/Conceptual Transformations and Continuing Consequences

Abstract

Despite a congenital relationship between colonization and geographic scholarship, and despite the significance of colonial landscape transformation to current social and environmental challenges, a comprehensive geographic theory of colonialism and landscape remains incipient at best. In this article, a historical sketch provides some basic perspective on the scope appropriate to such a theory by outlining how the goals of scholarship on colonial landscape transformation have changed over the last century in relation to social and environmental context. The subsequent analysis compares and contrasts prior and existing conceptualizations of colonialism and landscape, each emphasizing particular elements and relationships at the expense of others but all thus jointly delineating what a more comprehensive framework must include. That analysis provides a preliminary basis for elaborating a comprehensive geographic theory of colonialism and landscape with an immediate focus on the Americas.

Andean Land Use and Biodiversity: Humanized Landscapes in a Time of Change

“…Colonialism has continued consequences for landscapes (Sluyter, 2001). Because the Spanish were concerned with control of their colonies, they imported and imposed land use as mediated through households clustered into towns and centered on a plaza with a church and administrative buildings.…”

Exploraciones arqueológicas en la Fortaleza de Santo Tomás de Jánico: nuevos aportes a su comprensión histórica

“…Estos, han sido conceptualmente "colonizados" (Pesoutova y Hofmann 2016;Sluyter, 2001) al vincular, casi de forma absoluta, la trascendencia histórica y cultural de ese espacio con su condición de escenario de la primera irrupción colonial europea al llamado Nuevo Mundo o con procesos derivados de ella. Ese enfoque ha contribuido a reducir la diversidad, complejidad, y dinamismo de su paisaje cultural en diferentes momentos históricos, al asumir un criterio de área cultural con una perspectiva diacrónica (Vega 1990, Veloz Maggiolo et.…”

The Archaeological Study of Spanish Colonialism in the Americas

“…Perhaps most striking is the lack of research on environmental change and landscapes, despite the currency of these topics among archaeologists and the public. Although a number of archaeologists have addressed food ways and human health (Deagan 1996b), with the important exception of Wernke (2007b) few have examined changes in human-landscape interactions or the impact of European expansion on the broader environment, research that is being developed by geographers and historians (e.g., Endfield 2008;Melville 1994;Preston 1997;Sluyter 2001). Landscape studies, in particular, have the potential for linking the past and the present in ways that can be especially meaningful to descendant communities (Rubertone 2000).…”