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A trailscape in the barrancas of Central Veracruz : land use and transportation in sloping terrain

University of British Columbia

The canyons, or barrancas of Central Veracruz remain as major voids in the region's cultural history. The inherited view of the barrancas as difficult in terms of movement and marginal in terms of potential for subsistence is no longer adequate. The region's inhabitants organize themselves to carry out construction and engineering projects in order to maintain trail links to a variety of local resources and activities ranging from cultivation to less apparent social objectives. Interaction between people in social, political and ritual contexts is made possible. The trails are utilized locally and their reach is extended with the road network, particularly as accessibility to the regional economy becomes necessary; adding trails to the region's transportation network results in a doubly interconnected transportation facility. The trail system thus provides a basis for adaptive strategies utilized to render local physiographic "limitations" less forbidding. Whether with the cultivation of coffee or cane, or the persisting traditional cropping strategies, land typically considered marginal is successfully exploited. The trails not only form part of the economic basis for the region's subsistence economy, but they are consequential in terms of land use strategies. Further, they are primal in terms of the region's transportation facility; this primal characteristic is confirmed when we re-evaluate the region's transportation history.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-01-27

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/3924

Geography

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace