Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REMIND (Reimagining Urban Growth in the Mérida Region through Long-Term Adaptive Indigenous Practices: An applied archaeology for sustainable urban development)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-10-01 bis 2024-09-30
The forces that govern urban growth and development marginalise traditional Maya urban patterns and practices. Yet, indigenous patterns and practices have adapted through over 2,000 years of social-ecological pressures and major societal transitions in the pre- to postcolonial eras, incl. political and economic reform and migration, population growth and decline, colonisation, industrialisation, and nationalisation. Especially in peripheral urban areas and smaller towns, remnants of urban indigeneity can still be appreciated. Urban growth that is realised according to globalised notions now threatens these remnants. Although the long-term history of adaptation suggests that Maya urban landscapes hold significant value for achieving regionally appropriate sustainable urban development, archaeological and historical Maya urban heritage and vernacular architecture is exclusively used to serve the tourist economy and superficial assertions of regional identity, disallowing substantive developmental influence.
Thus, REMIND research design is two-pronged: 1. It pursues an empirical research methodology which aims to assemble a regionally specific evidence-base on the changes and consistencies in Maya urban landscapes in the long-term, using ~6th and ~13th century archaeological examples, alongside historical and contemporary urban mapping of Merida and its periphery. This spatial data is produced to varying standards, differing according to the nature and purpose of the maps and records produced. REMIND employs research techniques advancing historical GIS and urban morphological methods respecting the particularities of URM. Furthermore, REMIND contextualises such abstract data with urban anthropological and architectural fieldwork in residential samples of disadvantaged traditional satellite towns around Merida. Here development is, in different ways, profoundly affected by expansive urban growth. Standardised mapping, spatial analyses, and data visualisations enhanced by the rich experiential context provided by the fieldwork will form a guide, inspirational motivator, and resource in the second prong of the research actions. 2. REMIND identifies and mobilises key authoritative and institutional stakeholders in the sustainable urban planning and design of URM, concerning city, municipal, and state governments. Through two workshops followed by a short period of collaborative work on actionable joint outputs, it leverages a historically integrative perspective on indigenous urbanism among pivotal officials and representatives. Ultimately, the collaborative work should define, illustrate, and distribute a series of co-create reimaginative ‘indigenous urban development principles’. Focusing on the fieldwork towns ensures that these principles – e.g. design codes, planning advice, and strategic schemes redressing fundamental issues in urban land cover and land use divisions and distributions – can be formulated co-creatively in response to site-based urban development challenges with potential to promote sustainable and equitable opportunities in regional urban life.
The project adopted the production of a Digital Edition of the first comprehensive and reliable city plan of Merida from 1864-5, having confirmed its pivotal nature regarding urban historical development and regional indigenous settlement through original historical cartographical work. The project achieved the most comprehensive digital collection of historical town (and settlement) plans for Yucatan, focused on the vicinity of Merida, assembled through digital and in person archival work across five different archives holding regional cartographical material. Because historical cartography rarely represents the urban built environment enabling research on micro-morphological levels of (adapting) residential patterns, additional historical aerial photography research took place, from which a sample of urban blocks was reconstructively mapped through time in GIS. The archaeological topographical GIS data was acquired to enable future comparative analyses. Several months of fieldwork was realised, curtailed by adverse weather events and slow progress in challenging local conditions, following a multimethod approach incl. photographic recording, form-based property registration, cartographical annotation, walking urban transects, recording visits to residential patios, and semi-structured explorative interviews. In person meetings with a variety of institutional representatives carrying responsibility for urban planning and design in the region were carried out and commitments for workshop participation acquired. Calendar conflicts and the challenges of remote organisation postponed the first workshop, but delivery is planned for the start of the European phase. All these activities represent significant progress in the agenda of professional development of the fellow.
- The digital historical cartographical collection of REMIND significantly advances the knowledge, discoverability, and usability of regional mapping evidence, which ongoing empirical work demonstrates has great potential to advance urban morphological research.
- Conceptual research in conjunction with its influence on the urban anthropological and architectural fieldwork demonstrates the pertinence of urban land cover and land use division and distribution to sustainable urban development using long-term evidence, and underlines the need for multiscalar approaches that integrate urban landscapes.
- The diverse GIS-based urban vector mapping through time demonstrates concretes directions for developing urban morphological research as appropriate to this region. When next combined with archaeological evidence, REMIND will offer a rare example of a longitudinal empirical study in urban morphology, substantiating how aspects of urban form contribute to sustainable development.
- Through preparing workshop I, the enthusiasm for and interest in the project’s premise among planning stakeholders, together with the empirical advances made, anticipates the likelihood of supplying actionable knowledge that values and utilises indigenous urban patterns and practices in sustainable urban development, thus offering an early example of applied archaeology in regional urban planning.