Latin American Studies ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 5-16-2025

Abstract

This dissertation project delves into the processes of ideation, design, projection, and knowledge-transfer around the Presidio, an iconoclastic fortification system deployed by the Spanish Empire while projecting its colonial power toward the Transatlantic region. Based on Bruno Latour’s classic theory on the agency of networks of meanings (also known as new materialism) applied to historical cartography, my investigation examines the production of techno-military knowledge around the presidios as they were depicted through plans, maps, and manuals while mapping out border areas over North America and the Caribbean, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. With archival research work performed at the Spanish Colonial Research Center (Zimmerman Library Special Collections, UNM) and other relevant physical and digital repositories, this project seeks to explain the legacies of colonial coercion in the pre-industrial and military territorialization of the modern state forming in North America and the Caribbean.

Project Sponsors

Latin American & Iberian Institute, UNM; Center for Regional Studies, UNM; Friends of Coronado Foundation, New Mexico.

Language

Spanish

Keywords

Presidios, discursos occidentales de fortificación, dispositividad, producción de conocimiento tecno-militar, modernidad transatlántica, espacialidad coercitiva, áreas fronterizas (presidios, western discourses on fortification, ‘dispositividad’, techno-military knowledge production, Transatlantic modernities, covercive spatiality, boderlands)

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Latin American Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Latin American Studies

Second Department

School of Architecture and Planning

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dr. K. Maria D. Lane

Second Committee Member

Dr. Chris Duvall

Third Committee Member

M.A. Francisco Uvina

Fourth Committee Member

Dr. Joseph Sanchez

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