A Digital Geography of Indigenous Mexico: Prototype for the American Geographical Society's Bowman Expeditions

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1 Dr. Herlihy is an associate professor of geography at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, where Dr. Dobson is a professor of geography.

2 Dr. Smith is an assistant professor of geography at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada kis 5B6.

3 Dr. Aguilar Robledo is a professor of geography at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

4 Mr. Kelly is a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045

5 Ms. Ramos Viera is a doctoral student.

* We thank Kansas State University doctoral candidate Vicki Tinnon Brock and University of Kansas doctoral recipient Mauricio Herrera for their work during the summer of 2005. Anthropologists Anuschka van't Hooft and Miguel Nicolás Caretta of the Coordinación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades helped administer the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí students and worked in training workshops. Judith Corpus and Luis Olvera provided computer support services, and Coordinación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades administrator Daniel Rodríguez made management of the multinational and multibudgeted project as smooth as possible, as did the University of Kansas staff.

3. Dobson and Latin Americanist geographer Peter Herlihy, colleagues in the Department of Geography at the University of Kansas, won two fmso contracts in early 2005, one to study Mexico's property regime and the other to construct an open‐source gis on the nation. Herlihy was then on a U.S.‐Mexico Fulbright‐García Robles Grant as a visiting professor at the recently formed Coordinación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. He was collaborating with its founding director, the geographer Miguel Aguilar Robledo, on a prm project involving land use, land tenure, and conservation of natural resources among indigenous Teenek and Nahua communities of the Huasteca region, funded by the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Herlihy and Aguilar Robledo combined their prm project with the fmso property regime and gis work to undertake the first ags Bowman Expedition. Dobson and Herlihy, in collaboration with Aguilar Robledo—and together with ags Executive Director Mary Lynne Bird and Mike Smith of Radiance Technologies—submitted the successful proposals. The integrated project became known as Mexico Indígena.

4. The main collaboration was between the University of Kansas and the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. Expedition leader Herlihy worked with Aguilar Robledo to develop the field and laboratory research, forging links that included the sharing of computer equipment and office space, the exchange of ideas through seminars and conferences, and, most significant, the dedicated involvement and collaborative training of students and faculty. Derek Smith, of Carleton University added his field, gis, and human skills, as did John Kelly and Aida Ramos Viera. Ramos Viera, the first international student to join an ags Bowman Expedition, completed the thesis for her master's degree at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí as part of the project (Ramos Viera 2007). This group of professors and students—the core México Indígena researchers—shared a heartfelt and extraordinary sense of purpose.

5. Ramos Viera and Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí students Carlos Bonilla Jiménez, Gerardo López Roque, Martha Elena Ramírez Espinosa, and Jacinto Jiménez Morales lived in the study communities, working alongside and training the community‐elected local investigators: Juan Carlos Navarro from Chimalaco, Amado Hernández Isabel from Tazaquil, Darío Hernández Reyes from Cuatlamayán, Baldomero Hernández Medina from Las Armas, Agustín Lázaro Reyes from Santa Cruz, Ignacio Ramírez Morales from Tancuime, Timoteo Hernández Hernández from La Lima, Simón Martínez Hernández from La Pila, and León Hernández Bautista from El Chuchupe. The Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas selected Alejandra Marcos Bautista, a Teenek speaker from Las Armas, as field coordinator. All of these team members received modest reimbursements for their involvement in México Indígena.

6. We distinguish our prm‐gis methodological approach from the broader “public participation in gis,” or ppgis, approach (Craig, Harris, and Weiner 2002; Ghose and Elwood 2003; Crampton and Stewart 2004; Elwood 2006; Sieber 2006), which involves “participation” but rarely acts in a “participatory” manner by releasing parts of the research and power, including its design and implementation, to local people (sensu Herlihy and Leake 1997, Herlihy 2002, Herlihy and Knapp 2003).

Notes

1 Dr. Herlihy is an associate professor of geography at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, where Dr. Dobson is a professor of geography.

2 Dr. Smith is an assistant professor of geography at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada kis 5B6.

3 Dr. Aguilar Robledo is a professor of geography at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

4 Mr. Kelly is a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045

5 Ms. Ramos Viera is a doctoral student.

* We thank Kansas State University doctoral candidate Vicki Tinnon Brock and University of Kansas doctoral recipient Mauricio Herrera for their work during the summer of 2005. Anthropologists Anuschka van't Hooft and Miguel Nicolás Caretta of the Coordinación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades helped administer the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí students and worked in training workshops. Judith Corpus and Luis Olvera provided computer support services, and Coordinación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades administrator Daniel Rodríguez made management of the multinational and multibudgeted project as smooth as possible, as did the University of Kansas staff.

3. Dobson and Latin Americanist geographer Peter Herlihy, colleagues in the Department of Geography at the University of Kansas, won two fmso contracts in early 2005, one to study Mexico's property regime and the other to construct an open‐source gis on the nation. Herlihy was then on a U.S.‐Mexico Fulbright‐García Robles Grant as a visiting professor at the recently formed Coordinación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. He was collaborating with its founding director, the geographer Miguel Aguilar Robledo, on a prm project involving land use, land tenure, and conservation of natural resources among indigenous Teenek and Nahua communities of the Huasteca region, funded by the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Herlihy and Aguilar Robledo combined their prm project with the fmso property regime and gis work to undertake the first ags Bowman Expedition. Dobson and Herlihy, in collaboration with Aguilar Robledo—and together with ags Executive Director Mary Lynne Bird and Mike Smith of Radiance Technologies—submitted the successful proposals. The integrated project became known as Mexico Indígena.

4. The main collaboration was between the University of Kansas and the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. Expedition leader Herlihy worked with Aguilar Robledo to develop the field and laboratory research, forging links that included the sharing of computer equipment and office space, the exchange of ideas through seminars and conferences, and, most significant, the dedicated involvement and collaborative training of students and faculty. Derek Smith, of Carleton University added his field, gis, and human skills, as did John Kelly and Aida Ramos Viera. Ramos Viera, the first international student to join an ags Bowman Expedition, completed the thesis for her master's degree at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí as part of the project (Ramos Viera 2007). This group of professors and students—the core México Indígena researchers—shared a heartfelt and extraordinary sense of purpose.

5. Ramos Viera and Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí students Carlos Bonilla Jiménez, Gerardo López Roque, Martha Elena Ramírez Espinosa, and Jacinto Jiménez Morales lived in the study communities, working alongside and training the community‐elected local investigators: Juan Carlos Navarro from Chimalaco, Amado Hernández Isabel from Tazaquil, Darío Hernández Reyes from Cuatlamayán, Baldomero Hernández Medina from Las Armas, Agustín Lázaro Reyes from Santa Cruz, Ignacio Ramírez Morales from Tancuime, Timoteo Hernández Hernández from La Lima, Simón Martínez Hernández from La Pila, and León Hernández Bautista from El Chuchupe. The Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas selected Alejandra Marcos Bautista, a Teenek speaker from Las Armas, as field coordinator. All of these team members received modest reimbursements for their involvement in México Indígena.

6. We distinguish our prm‐gis methodological approach from the broader “public participation in gis,” or ppgis, approach (Craig, Harris, and Weiner 2002; Ghose and Elwood 2003; Crampton and Stewart 2004; Elwood 2006; Sieber 2006), which involves “participation” but rarely acts in a “participatory” manner by releasing parts of the research and power, including its design and implementation, to local people (sensu Herlihy and Leake 1997, Herlihy 2002, Herlihy and Knapp 2003).