GIS in Latin America Series: Domains: Mapping Jurisdictions to Understand Spanish Colonialism

5.3.21
Bianca Premo, Florida International University

Domains, an ARC-GIS/Esri Story Map (Classic) project created in 2017 by graduate students and faculty specializing in Latin American History at Florida International University, depicts the concentric, contested domains of legal jurisdiction in colonial Spanish America. This presentation first recounts the project’s origins inside and beyond the classroom, reflecting on the challenges of integrating the practice of digital mapping into diverse teaching environments and among scholars with analog sensibilities. It then discusses how Domains captures political and legal authority in a different way from traditional organizational charts or historical maps, enhancing its usefulness both as a teaching tool and research primer for those using the colonial archive. Finally, the presentation will reflect on the future of the project and the unique challenges that “class-made” digital maps like this face.

Cosponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies and Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.