Indigenous Mapping Network: Ruth Askevold on California Indigenous Landscapes for GIS Day

The Indigenous Mapping Network invites you to
attend a presentation at
Berkeley’s Geospatial Innovation Facility GIS Day

“Clues on the Map: Using Historical Maps to
Recreate California Indigenous Landscapes in a GIS”

Ruth Askevold

GIS Analyst, Historical Ecology – San Francisco Estuary Institute

This presentation
examines how the Historical Ecology Program at the San Francisco Estuary
Institute (SFEI) uses maps in a GIS to reconstruct historical landscapes, and
how using these maps can help us understand native land management and
landscape conditions at the time of colonization.

Historical maps and narrative accounts
of the San Francisco Bay area hold clues about the landscapes inhabited by
California’s indigenous peoples before Euro-American colonization. But because
these maps and descriptions were created to protect colonial interests—and are
not simply objective mirrors of what existed—they reflect the biases and
perspectives of those who made them. Mapping practices included replacing
California’s Indian and Spanish/Mexican place names with new place names,
imposing township and range lines over natural features, and using precision
surveying techniques that replaced more descriptive maps. In this way,
cartographers attempted to overwrite tribal environmental and cultural
knowledge and impose a new order on the land.

This presentation examines how the
Historical Ecology Program at the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) uses
maps in a GIS to reconstruct historical landscapes, and how using these maps
can help us understand native land management and landscape conditions at the
time of colonization. SFEI’s approach includes georeferencing historical maps
and textual data (explorer’s narratives, newspaper accounts, and related map
attributes) and allows for multiple interpretations of sources, as maps are
combined and recombined in a GIS. Through examples from various San Francisco
Bay Area watershed-based projects designed to support environmental restoration
and management, I show how we can find clues on maps and traces on the land
that allow us to consider native land management practices. Additional methods
such as interviews with tribal members and large- scale eco-archaeological
research are also considered.

http://imnatucb111809.eventbrite.com

GIS DAY:

For more
information see:  http://gif.berkeley.edu/gisday.html

LOCATION: Mulford Hall, UCB, Berkeley, CA 94720

Mulford Hall
is near the intersection of Center and Oxford St., at the northwest corner of
the Berkeley campus.  From Mulford’s main
entrance, walk straight down the long hall and look for signs.  For an interactive campus map and directions
to the UC Berkeley campus please see http://www.berkeley.edu/map and http://visit.berkeley.edu/directions-parking/

PARKING:

There is a small university run lot on Addison, between Oxford and Shattuck. It
is on the north side of the street(NOT in the structure accross the street from
it). If you can find a spot here, there is a machine to pay that will give you
a ticket to display on your dashboard.

Other parking
garages in the City of Berkeley:

Closest garages include Berkeley Way near Shattuck, Center Street near Shattuck
(2025 Center Street), and Allston Way near Shattuck (2061 Allston Way). More
information can be found at the Berkeley
Office of Transportation

Do NOT park on campus without a campus permit. Campus parking is enforced 24-hours-a-day.

BACKGROUND:

The
Indigenous Mapping Network at UC Berkeley convenes researchers and students,
indigenous community members, human rights groups, conservation organizations,
mapping practitioners, technology professionals around indigenous mapping
issues.  Mapping approaches include GIS,
web, and mobile phone technologies, as well as thought maps, performance,
storytelling, and other media.

For more information contact Sibyl Diver, student chapter president of Indigenous Mapping Network at Berkeley, sdiver@berkeley.edu or Rosemarie McKeon, IMN board member, rosemarie.mckeon@gmail.com