Cynthia Radding. Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonoran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to Republic. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. xxiv + 432 pp. $89.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-3652-5.
Reviewed by Eric P. Perramond (Southwest Studies & Environmental Science, Colorado College)
Published on H-HistGeog (August, 2006)
On the Borderlands of Scholarship
Scholarship on and across disciplinary borderlands is a daunting and sometimes perilous venture. Historical geographers bridging the chasm of disciplines know this all too well. The potential for interdisciplinary work is certainly worth pursuing, even if the pitfalls of confusing other colleagues remain, as this volume illustrates. Certainly, this is ground-breaking work, almost magisterial in its breadth and attempt to search for broader meanings. There is a nearly moral-historical depth to Radding's volume that is lacking in similar works. Following on the heels of her social and environmental history of indigenous mission life in Sonora, Mexico, historian Cynthia Radding has appended new material on Bolivia in this comparative history of borderland frontiers.
In addition to material found in Radding's (1997) earlier Wandering Peoples on Sonora, she has added both substantive, empirical treatment of Chiquitos, Bolivia, and a thematic cum theoretical focus to the new work.[1] Comparing the arid stretches of Sonora with the sub-tropical expanse of Chiquitos may raise a few eyebrows but, to be fair, the author is quite explicit in addressing this seemingly apples-to-oranges comparative history. While the biomes are different, as Radding acknowledges, the two regions share qualities of a borderland frontier, both occupied and shaped by the interaction of indigenous peoples and a Spanish ecclesiastical presence.
Radding builds Landscapes of Power and Identity around a series of binding conceptual themes: cultural ecology, political economy, territory, ethnicity, gender, political culture and religion. The goal of the work is not only to provide a comparative historical treatment of these borderland regions but to fuse some treatment of cultural and environmental histories. Some confusion in the early going of this work is evident by the joint use of "cultural ecology" and a later "social ecology," both terms well-known to anthropologists, geographers and sociologists. Radding does give a nodding footnote to Steward and Geertz for cultural ecology, but does not explicitly justify how her use may differ from both past and current uses of the term. And her deployment of "social ecology," as somehow broader a concept, is drawn from a few of the more notable sub-altern South Asian authors (like Guha). Why "social ecology" is used instead of the more widely used "political ecology," however, is never explained. Social ecology is more commonly used in the literature of bio-regionalism and anarchism--although this is never discussed by the author, so why this was chosen is never fully convincing. This confusion over terms, however, does little to add or detract from the empirical presentation in Radding's book.
The text of Landscapes is wonderfully rich; replete with examples and archival materials, this is where the comparative work can stand on its own. While some readers not familiar with the regional terminologies might get frustrated at times, Radding's included glossary is a boon to the lost, and comprehensive. Little additional theory is necessary to illustrate the abiding and enduring strengths of cultural identity and resistance to outside authorities by indigenous peoples. Enclosed within this comparative regional history are ethnic spaces comprised of multiple groups, amalgamated as Serranos (in Sonora) and Chiquitanos (in Chiquitos). The later chapters, especially three and four on community property and ethnicity-gender, respectively, make clear the toil and the toll of defending indigenous notions of property, community and identity under Spanish rule. More importantly, Radding makes it clear in these empirical chapters how relatively "intact" these places were under Jesuit authority, prior to the national period efforts to dispense with communal (read: indigenous) notions of property and estates. Even as Catholic missionaries suppressed, transplanted or cajoled certain beliefs and rituals amongst the natives in Sonora and Chiquitos, indigenous beliefs and customs survived or were fused to the new presence of Christianity in innovative ways.
Between the Jesuit expulsion (1767) from the New World to national independence in the 1820s, the indigenous populations of both Sonora and Chiquitos were also subject to the wide sweep of Bourbon Reforms and privatization efforts, aimed at loosening communal control of old missions lands and encouraging new settlement in far-flung areas of the Spanish Empire. Both were destructive or at least highly caustic to the survival of native pueblo life in the two provinces. The common practice of the denuncia (claim to public land) as used by Spanish secular settlers (vecinos) to lay claim on old mission lands, used or unused, and although disputed effectively by native occupants, the denuncias were effective at loosening the communal grip on resources.
Radding has produced a compelling work of cultural history, comparative, and richly detailed. If the fusion of cultural and environmental history is lacking, it is largely due to the challenge of conjoining the two sub-fields in a convincing way. But her intent was to make clear the importance of bio-physical environments as constitutive of regional histories, and in this effort, Landscapes is a resounding success.
This integrative and narrative treatment of regional, indigenous cultures and borderlands, largely focused on the 18th-19th centuries, will appeal to a wide variety of historians and anthropologists. Latin Americanists attempting comparative research need to consult this book for promising leads, the rich historical notes and archival sources, and to think critically about how regions may or may not compare in cultural and bio-physical terms.
Geographers, especially of the historical ilk, will find much of interest in Radding's volume even if many of the fundamental, theoretical concepts are unevenly applied or explained. Perhaps the unhelpful use of "social ecology," also used in the earlier (1997) work on Sonora, could be dropped without detracting from the compelling arguments made by the author. Tying the political chapter, especially the richly informative details on the cabildo (town council), to the ecology of the regions might have bolstered Radding's arguments more considerably. And while the numerous maps, diagrams and tables serve to provide interesting and complementary materials for the argument, the captions for maps and the author's own photos seem only loosely tied to the specific passage in which they appear. As such, they serve more as illustrations, rather than as fundamental aspects of the book's arguments. The footnotes, index, glossary and bibliography are all flawlessly produced and extensive. The archival sources consulted, listed under "abbreviations," will also help future scholars unearth the rich, textural, comparative histories waiting to be completed. Even with the small caveats noted, Radding's volume is pioneering work, always the most challenging kind of academic venture.
Note
[1]. Cynthia Radding, Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700-1850 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).
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Citation:
Eric P. Perramond. Review of Radding, Cynthia, Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonoran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to Republic.
H-HistGeog, H-Net Reviews.
August, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12199
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