Contrasting worldviews in Hispaniola: Places and Taskscapes at the age of Colonial Encounter

Summary

Landscape has been an useful analytical tool for archaeologists for a long time. Its definition since its first uses in the discipline has grown and diversified to the point that is has been called a "usefully ambiguous" concept. However, this broad definition should not be applied everywhere and in every temporal/historical context. This concept should not be used as an straight forward analytical tool, but requires a critical contextual revision. For an alternative approach in the area of this research, I am using Ingold’s concept of taskscape and place to analyze and interpret the conflicting relations between the indigenous population of Hispaniola island and the Spaniards as a result of the beginning of colonization after 1492. Moreover, when relating Ingold’s concept of taskscape with Descola’s symbolic ecology with particular reference to his notion of mode of identification, the resulting theoretical frame allowed to compare the different worldviews from these groups at this specific historical period. This paper will present the first results of this theoretical exploration, particularly the indigenous and Spaniard intentionality behind their own spatial patterning in relation as well with material culture and the environmental context.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• The Limits of "Landscape": Alternative Archaeologies of Space

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15800