Retrieving Indigenous Knowledge to a Digital Map: the Case of the Traditional Farming System in a Hñahñu (Otomí) Community, Mexico

Abstract

GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings Retrieving Indigenous Knowledge to a Digital Map: the Case of the Traditional Farming System in a Hnahnu (Otomi) Community, Mexico Jose Maria Leon Villalobos a , Enrique Ojeda Trejo a , Michael K. McCall b Veronica Vazquez Garcia c . a Posgrado de Edafologia, Colegio de Postgraduados, Campus Montecillo, Carretera Mexico – Texcoco km. 36.5, CP 56207, Texcoco Estado de Mexico, Mexico, Email:{jomalevi@yahoo.com.mx; enriqueot@colpos.mx; verovazgar@hotmail.com } b CIGA, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografia Ambiental, UNAM, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, Antigua Carretera a Patzcuaro N o. 8701. Col. Ex –Hacienda de San Jose de la Huerta C.P. 58190 Morelia, Mexico Email: mccall@ciga.unam.mx c Posgrado en Desarrollo Rural, Colegio de Postgraduados, Campus Montecillo, Carretera Mexico – Texcoco km. 36.5, CP 56207, Texcoco Estado de Mexico, Mexico, Email: verovazgar@hotmail.com. Abstract Indigenous classification systems represent cognitive experiences of human groups in the geographical space. Formalization efforts of indigenous knowledge impose their own concepts, and therefore, it is often decontextualized. This research aims to formalize the farm land management system of an Hnahnu (otomi) community into a map using their own geographical concepts. A semantic analysis with Participatory Geographical Information System and Google Earth visualization is proposed as a method. Results show that farm land management system developed by Hnahnu include a set of geographical categories and subcategories. It was found that the Hnahnu classify them using the plot location in the landscape and the technique for providing water to grow crops as attributes. Although this recognition allowed the drawing of boundaries, the Hnahnu conceptualization of space challenged the conventional map, this led into a Google earth map. Google Earth showed the potential for improving indigenous knowledge representations within the community. 1. Introduction Language is a good starting point to understand the way indigenous people perceive, conceptualize and understand their geographical space (Giannakopoulou et al. 2013). Although numerous researches on indigenous knowledge formalization have been conducted most of them impose their own scientific and technical concepts. Therefore, indigenous knowledge is often decontextualized and incompletely represented (Chapin et al. 2005). Using the indigenous geographic concepts and terms to formalize knowledge is a reasonable way to approach the indigenous view of geographical space. This research took place in the Hnahnu community of Huitexcalco in the dry Mezquital Valley, Mexico. The low precipitation and shallow soils led to the Hnahnus to trap water and soil in terraces which are typically built in gullies or up hillsides for cropping. This research aims to formalize the Hnahnu farm land management system into a spatial representation using their own concepts and terms. The formalization process encompassed both the elicitation of the Hnahnu farm terms and concepts in workshops and the production of a conventional map into a GIS and then into Google Earth. 2. Methods